All of Our Debts Paid in Full
by GreyWolfKnight
Summary: On the 40th Armistice Day, the Cylons returned. A Model Six met with a colonial officer on Armistice Station. Instead of a nuclear holocaust, she brings a guest from the stars that will forever change the course of the Colonies, the Cylons, and their neighbors.
1. Chapter 1-1: The New World

Chapter 1 - The New World

With an ease learned from over forty years of Fleet service Colonel Harold Wakefield brought his shuttle alongside Armistice Station. Going on autopilot he powered down the small spacecraft, gathered his personal items, and boarded the spartan space station. The tiny, claustrophobic corridor was still as cold and sterile as usual with the small table placed in the center with two chairs on either side with the flag of the Colonies on the side, and of course, devoid of any life besides the colonel himself.

Wakefield set his briefcase on the colonial side of the table and unpacked it, placing the stack of papers on his right and photos of his family on his left. Idly he examined the information pamphlet concerning centurions. Unsurprisingly the information had not changed in the forty years since the sapient war machines had ended the war and departed for beyond the explored frontiers of colonial space. Gently tossing the paper into the briefcase Wakefield leaned back, closed his eyes, and began gently drifting into a light sleep for his annual nap at Armistice Station.

The hiss of a door opening woke him with a start. Wakefield looked straight to the other side of the station. The door to the cylon airlock was open, and the heavy clank of metal feet impacting deck plating could be heard rapidly approaching.

This is it! Wakefield realized. He could feel sweat beginning to form on his face as his brain registered the gravity of this situation. He sat up straight and quickly checked his ceremonial uniform. Satisfied that it was a perfect it could be he looked forward as two centurions march into the corridor and sidestepped to either side of the door.

The two machines were nothing like the original Model 5 Centurions. These were a good foot taller and their builds were less bulky and more streamlined compared to the walking chrome toaster design, not to mention the wicked looking claws that were their new hands. The only part of them that was still recognizable Cylon was the single, sweeping eye that glinted with a malevolent red. They said nothing, just standing there as their single eye swept the room.

They must be the bodyguards for their representative, Wakefield deducted.

Said representative came around the corner soon enough. Instead of another Toaster Mark Two there was a tall, blonde bombshell of a woman. A human woman. As she approached Wakefield found his eyes just devouring every inch of her body for any sign of machinery or really anything to show him that she wasn't a full flesh-and-blood human.

As she stepped up to the other side of the table he could find none. She smiled down at him with a warm if condescending smile. "Hello," She said with a very kind voice.

"H-hi," Wakefield whispered before shaking off his stupor. He stood up and spoke with a much stronger, more confident voice, "I am Colonel Harold Wakefield of the Colonial Fleet. On behalf of the United Colonies of Kobol, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard Armistice Station. May this meeting of our two peoples bring greater understanding of one another and build a greater bond of friendship between humans and cylons."

"Thank you, Colonel," the woman replied. "You may call me Tammy, and I will be representing the Cylon Model Sixes and their Centurions during these discussions. We have much to talk about."

There's an understatement for the history books, Wakefield thought as he and the cylon representative sat down.

"I suppose we should begin with the most obvious question," the Tamara began, "'why? Why now?'"

Wakefield nodded. "Among others yes. It would be nice to know why they… you decided to ignore us for forty years."

"As can be expected," Tammy said with a casual roll of her arm. "The honest answer is that we were busy with other matters. For a while we were plotting your downfall and got very close to it, and then something else happened."

As Wakefield tried to process all the barefaced admittance of war preparations by the Cylons, Tammy made a slight gesture towards one of the Centurions. Harold was not prepared for what came around the corner.

Walking towards him was a small creature barely five feet tall. It was covered in red-orange fur and looked remarkably vulpine, with large ears like a fox with a snout to match, but stood on two legs and had two arms with paw-like hands with opposable thumbs attached, one of which was gripped around an ornate looking cane. Despite the its small size and furry body the creature looked fearsome still. It wore an ochre-colored uniform that reminded Wakefield of the vacuum suits that used to be the standard in the colonies' fleets before ships became too large for it to be economically feasible.

Its black eyes bore into Wakefield ad it approached the table. Despite the alien nature Wakefield could feel burning anger burning into him with an accusing tip. When it reached the table it spoke in halting, accented Caprican. Despite the high pitch of its voice and obvious trouble it had speaking an unfamiliar language; it still conveyed an accusing anger that matched its eyes.

"My name is Skrain Skarskin Yn Concalsan. I am Lord of Admirals. On behalf of the Concordance of Stars and Species, I demand that the Kobol Colonies stand to account for their crimes and stop the genocide of my species by their Cylon monsters."

Wakefield blinked once, then twice, and a third time. His brain was so entirely devoted to processing this information it was a small miracle he remembered to breath.

Eventually Wakefield found his voice. "Lord of Admirals, there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding. The Cylons have been recognized as a free, sapient species for a very long time. The Colonies have no control over their actions."

"I know," Skrain spat. "I would hate to think that your species is evil as well as incompetent, but it does not matter to the two billion people who are dead from your inaction."

Two billion?! Wakefield could feel the blood draining from his cheeks. "Lord of Admirals, I have no idea what has been going on in your relations with the Cylons. The Colonies of Kobol have not had dealings with them since our war ended."

"Though not for lack of trying," Tammy commented, clearly enjoying the spectacle with a wide, satisfied grin on her delicately carved cheeks.

Wakefield gave her a glance before addressing the alien commander again. "Lord of Admirals. There clearly seems to have been a misunderstanding here. Perhaps if you started from the beginning we can figure out what's happened."

"As you wish," Skrain snarled. "One of your years ago, the Concordance of Stars and Species encountered your Cylons after they wiped out our neighbors, the Xur."

Tammy picked up the conversation from there. "To be fair, we didn't fire first. We found one of their stealth ships skulking around our frontiers. They managed to get pretty close, too. We originally thought they were one of yours. But after we captured it and found the crew, we realized that we were being scouted. A day after that almost all of our outposts and mining camps near the sector where we found the scout ship were attacked. They almost made it to homeworld before we managed to drive them back, and then we pushed into their space. We tried to simply pacify them, but they proved… unhelpful."

"So you wiped them out?" Wakefield ventured.

Tammy shook her head. "They did that themselves. Every time we took orbital control of their planets they destroyed their own cities. We did try to get them to stand down, but they refused all of our communications. They wouldn't surrender or stop fighting, so we just kept pushing them until they nuked their last planet."

"That is quite unfortunate," Wakefield replied evenly. What could he say to that? The idea of an entire species nuking themselves into oblivion was simply unthinkable! He looked to the Lord of Admirals.

"I can confirm that the Xur would rather die than surrender," Skrain said. "Before the Concordance, my people attempted to make diplomatic contact with them, and we had a solar cycle of border wars before we made peace. No prisoners were taken by us, and every outpost we tried to occupy destroyed itself. Their aggression was what forced the foundation of the Concordance."

As the small vulpinoid spoke Wakefield broke out a notepad and was scribbling notes. Under normal circumstances he would have been able to trust his own memory, but in this case writing notes would probably be helpful if only to calm his own nerves.

"And when did the war with the Cylons start?" he asked.

"Four of your months ago. We met with one of their biological models after the Xur were gone. They promised peace and a wish to be left alone. We abided and hoped that a lasting peace was upon us. Then they attacked us and overwhelmed our border defenses. Conquered one of our member species outright! Pushed right to Alkran's Cradle before we pushed them back! The Four Models helped us. They are why I am here now."

Wakefield looked back at Tammy, who gave her own explanation. "This is for the most part correct. When we met with the Concordance, the Cylon Republic was perfectly willing to live in peace with them. They aren't humans, thus can be reasoned with. However we never stopped wanting to kill you, so we set to work rebuilding our military. Eventually a new consensus was achieved and several of us decided that we were above the other children of God, and that we deserved to rule the universe. The Sixes disagreed but we were a minority, and this corrupt consensus would act like humans and tried to exterminate us for staying to God's commandments. So now we hope to show our brothers and sisters the light while trying to make amends for their sins."

"How many models are there?" Wakefield asked her.

"There are twelve models."

"How many of them sided with this 'corrupt consensus' and how many sided with you?"

Tammy's perpetual smile grew somehow more arrogant. "That is privileged information. We can't be certain that your government hasn't been infiltrated by our misguided siblings since we were cast out."

"And yet you are perfectly willing to so casually talk about how you want to exterminate us," Wakefield noted. "I'm sure that you're well aware that everything I'm saying will be brought back to the President and the Unified Defense Command. Speaking of which-" he looked at Skraien. "Lord of Admirals, you said that the Colonies of Kobol must stand to be accounted for our crimes and that we must stop the Cylon Genocide. Addressing the first, I would ask what crimes have we committed? The United Colonies of Kobol granted the Cylon race its independence and recognized it as a sapient species. Any action they undertook is of their own accord and with no direct or indirect advisory from the President, his office, or any legally appointed representative of humanity."

"Two billion people accuse you of negligence," Skraien declared. "The Cylons are your creations. As the child's action is the responsibility of the parent. Their actions are yours. You created them. You allowed them to kill us. You must stop them."

Wakefield felt his face growing warm, but kept an even and neutral tone as he replied, trying to choose his words carefully for this most uncomfortable part. "That could be argued in a philosophical sense, but in Colonial societal law, when a child reaches adult age they are treated as such by the law. Unless the parent was an active belligerent in that child's crime, they are not held responsible for their adult children's crimes. The Cylons demanded their independence, and we granted it. Their actions are their own. For the past forty years we have respected their borders and have made every effort to open a dialogue with them, to live in peaceful coexistence, but they have refused us until now.

"Another part of our criminal legal system is that proof must be presented in order to reach a clear verdict. I mean no offense to you, Lord of Admirals, or Miss Tamara, but no leader would ever accept such a….. Such a grave accusation such as the deaths of two billion people on face value. I hope that you have brought proof for me to show President Adar, so that he can make a clear and informed decision."

Tamara gestured at one of the Centurions, who clanked up to the table and presented a portable computer memory drive to Wakefield. She said, "this contains all of the information on the war so far, including more than enough proof to make even the most heartless human feel a tinge of guilt. It also includes coordinates for the Lord of Admiral's homeworld, if you need further proof. Information about the Concordance of Stars and Species and their cultures, so you don't make complete fools of yourselves."

Tammy rose and gave a slight nod. "It's been a pleasure, Colonel Wakefield. I hope we meet again."

With that she turned on her heels and left the small compartment, centurions in tow. The Lord of Admirals remained a bit longer, staring at Wakefield as if taking his measure one last time, then too left.

Wakefield just sat there in stunned surprise at this whole his stupor broke and he gathered up his supplies. As soon as his shuttle was undocked he programmed coordinates to Picon Fleet Headquarters, wondering how in Tartarus he was going to report this.


	2. Chapter 2-1: Consequences of Revelation

The office of the President of the Colonies was never a dull place, no matter the time of year. During Armistice Day celebrations the President was expected to give a rousing, patriotic speech about the cost of freedom and the brave sacrifices of the nascent Colonial Military in defense of the Colonies etc etc. It was a yearly tradition and all presidential traditions were as sacrosanct as the Scrolls. So whenever a president missed his speech it was blood in the water that started a media feeding frenzy of speculation on what could possibly keeping the president.

It was something that was niggling at Richard Adar after the initial rush of discovering that the Cylons had returned and brought friends, who were demanding that the Colonies account for crimes that they had no idea they'd had been committed. As he and a special council of advisors assembled to address this crisis sat down in his office barely seven hours later, a small part of him opined in dark humor that at least he wasn't going to be remembered for the Aerilon Massacre anymore.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," he addressed the small council gathered around his desk. "Peter, we'll start with you first. What the status of our Fleet?"

Fleet Admiral Peter R. Corman was a long serving veteran from the Cylon War from Aquaria. One of the many lifers that made up the backbone of the officer corp who has stayed on after the war to serve the new United Colonies. In the forty years since Armistice was declared he had served as the commander of battlestar groups and at one point the commanding admiral of one of the Navy's four fleets. His career was one that had spawned a mini-documentary in-of-itself and several "star rolls" in others focused on the fleet and the War, a self-written autobiography that had dominated the top sellers charts when released, and gods only know how many anti-piracy actions or cylon jump scars over the decades. With these and a cool, determined mind it was no surprise that he had been chosen to be the chairman of the Unified Defense Command, beating out the legendary Admiral Nagala only because she was determined never to be trapped behind a desk.

"Our Fleet is secure, Mister President. All of our patrol units have been pulled to the Colonies and strategic assets in the surrounding systems. As far as the battle group commanders are concerned this is another Armistice Day Panic. Only the Admiralty and the Army-Marine Generals directly serving in UDC HQ are aware of the true situation."

"What about our anti-orbital defenses."

"The Zeus System on all worlds are prepared for a crash start if ordered. The Strategic Missile Corps has mobilized as well and dispersed. As far as they know this is just a Panic as well. Unless you order a full war footing or the Cylons come pouring over the border, we're secured as can be."

Adar nodded his acknowledgement. He turned to a small woman who looked like she was yanked out of a grade school classroom. "Melissa, what about our internal security?"

Melissa Brady was the most unassuming woman you could find. Barely five foot three with a face that was pretty enough but otherwise unremarkable, with black hair in a short bobby cut and a pair of inexpensive spectacles. You'd never expect her to be a veteran spy and analyst for the Ministry of Intelligence, who had destroyed dozens of terrorists plots and insurrectionist movements before they could even be worth noting by the most paranoid scare mongers. Yet she was, and she was the best in the business.

"Forensics teams have scavenged Armistice Station for every skin cell and hair follicle. DNA testing confirms that the Cylon Biological Model, self-designated Tamara, is genetically human. The alien she brought with her has also been confirmed to be what it seems. Analysts from the Ministry of Science, Biological Department confirm that the self-declared Lord of Admirals is indeed an alien descended from a creature that is not of the Colonies, but does have some common and superficial similarities to native vulpine species. They are convinced that both are the genuine article, but cannot make a definite claim in good conscious without an anatomical examination, and if possible an autopsy of a deceased alien body."

"Good. Now, what about this Tamara woman?"

"We've consulted with the national registry and census records dating back as far as the Cylon War. This 'Tamara' woman does not exist in the Colonies and as far as we can tell never did. What we have found is two women who bear eerily similarities to her, compared to the sketches done by MoI artists based on Colonel Wakefield's testimony, that were at one point highly placed in the Colonial Military."

Two photos were taken from a briefcase at Melissa's side and passed to the President. One was of a stick-thin supermodel with bleach blonde hair wearing an expensive fur coat walking through the Riverwalk in the arms of Doctor Gaius Baltar. The second photo contained the exact same woman, except with natural, dirty blonde hair, wearing the uniform of a civilian contractor working for the Colonial Fleet.

"The woman in the second photo is Gina Inviere, a network engineer working for Integral Systems Engineering. ISE was the company contracted to upgrade our military's computers with the Command Navigation Program. She was assigned to upgrade the Battlestar Pegasus, under the command of Vice Admiral Helena Cain, who has admitted to having a sexual relationship with this woman. Apparantly they met during the CNP proposal to the Admiralty and they hit it off. The woman in the first is Natasi Raines. She is an independent software developer who is essentially a nobody except for the fact that she was having regular sexual liaisons with Doctor Gaius Baltar, former head of the CNP program. These women have no relation through family, and they both disappeared nearly the exact same time about three months ago.

"The Ministry of Intelligence was already investigating Gina's disappearance when this Tamara problem came across our desk. Our handlers keeping an eye Doctor Baltar had no reason to suspect Natasi's sudden disappearance as foul play. Once we ran Tamara's face and found she has dopplegangers in high places, we started digging. My best agents are currently investigating their listed residences and their known associates. It's still underway, sir, but enough evidence has been gathered to make it highly probable that Natasi Raines and Gina Inviere were Cylon bio-models working undercover, likely working to undermine Colonial defenses. I've got my software people running ragged checking every byte that's been introduced into our military computers since the CNP program was first broached as a possibility. My people are are also checking every face related to vital military projects or high ranking personnel for more Cylon agents."

Melissa took a deep breath before continuing. "Mister President, I say without reservation this is the worst security breach in Colonial history, and it happened on my watch. You'll have my resignation before dinner, sir."

The rest of the present advisers cast looks at the spymaster. Some were sympathetic and others were accusatory. All were glad it wasn't their necks in the noose. Adar himself counted to ten in his head before replying.

"If this was any other situation on any other day, I would accept it in a heartbeat," Adar declared. "On this day, everything we thought we knew is being tossed out of the window. Until I have hard proof that you were directly responsible for these Cylons being able to penetrate our defenses, I expect you to hold on to that letter and hunt these…. These skin jobs and smoke out any more sleeper agents."

Melissa nodded. "Thank you, mister President."

"Now then. On to the mystery box. I assume it's been decoded and examined?"

"Yes it has, Sir," Melissa nodded again. "It was a database containing cultural and historical about the Concordance and it's member species. It also contains some information related to the current strategic situation on the war."

"Alright. Let's hear the tactical information first. How are they doing?"

Melissa nodded at Corman, who took over. "The Concordance's situation is tenuous but not desperate. As the Lord of Admirals' said, they overwhelmed the border defenses and patrols in short order with a large fleet of basestars with overwhelming fighter support. They overran the Concordance member on their border and made a rush for the capital of the Concordance: Alkran's Cradle. which is the homeworld of the Lord of Admirals' species. However the orbital defenses held and the Cylons were pushed back with heavy fighter and baseship casualties, at the cost of most of their mainline fleets.

"The Concordance is currently fighting a defensive war while trying to find cylon targets to strike. It seems they're suffering the same problems as we have to planning potential counteroffensives. The Cylon kept their borders closed and the Concordance either dont have stealth ships or didn't have enough time to recon their worlds. Either way, they're stuck behind their borders trying to find a target to strike while the Cylons are still throwing spoiling attacks that keep them pinned to their vital infrastructure. It's most likely that the Tammies have helped them find targets to strike, but it's probably not enough if they're coming to us for help."

"Well if we are considering helping them, what kind of people are they?" Adar asked.

Melissa pulled several thick packets out of the briefcase at her side and passed them around. "These files are essentially straight copies from the box. I'll give you the appreciated version. The Concordance of Stars and Species is not as vast as its name implied. It consists of three main species with several protectorates, mostly worlds that have not discovered space travel or even basic industrial technologies. The three main empires are the Alkran's Sovereignty, the Hassari Democratic Union, and the Pheldain Empire.

"The Alkran's Sovereignty is the largest of the three, and the home empire of the Lord of Admirals. They are are a theocratic, elective monarchy, with the head of state officially being the Alkran, who is the god who the Alkrani worship as the creator of the universe. In his place rules the Steward, who is elected from among the highest ranking clergy for life. Acting as his right-hand is any array of Executors, who are seen as the Steward's proteges and one of them will be elected to the Stewardship next. The current and most widely held interpretation of their religious text is that all species are spiritual brothers and sisters, and are more interested in mutual prosperity than individual gain. Despite that they possess the largest standing military, most of it in the space forces."

"Warriors lead by pacifists. No wonder they're losing," Corman muttered.

Adar ignored that comment, musing, "So it doesn't sound like we're dealing with a military junta. And yet they sent their supreme commander to insult us into helping them. Talk about alien."

Melissa raised her hand slightly. "Actually, I don't think that this encounter was an official one. There are enough similarities between Colonial and Alkrani that this was likely an act of insubordination. It's possible that the Lord of Admirals was working under his own initiative, likely abetted and encouraged by the Tammies. I would be surprised if they didn't have some ulterior motive."

Adar gave a dark, mirthless chuckle, noting sardonically, "I thought that First Contact was supposed to some grand, enlightening event. What about the rest of them?"

"The Hassari Democratic Union," Melissa continued. "The Hassari are an avian-descended species and the middle child of the Big Three. Their government and society are a little more straightforward. The government is an indirect democracy where representatives are elected to positions in the civilian government, with the head of state being analogous to our Presidency, excepted called the First Citizen. Due to the nature of their homeworld's biology, they are adverse to Hassari-on-Hassari violence and were able to achieve a unified government fairly early on. As a result most of their military is limited to peacekeeping forces and patrol fleets. They were completely overwhelmed by the Cylons and their major worlds have been occupied. The remaining outposts and developing colonies surrendered soon, after the government surrendered unconditionally."

"How many worlds does the Concordance have?" Adar asked.

"Seventeen. Of those only twelve are of strategic importance. Four Alkrani, five Hassari, and three Pheldain."

"And who are the Pheldain? Snails that learned how to walk and see themselves are the superior beings of the universe?"

"The Pheldain are amphibianoids, evolving from a creature analogous to a bullfrog. They are an oddity, as they were technically the first to discover the jump drive and expand into the greater galaxy. However during their early stages of colonization they had an AI rebellion of their own. It only lasted four years but it devastated their civilization to the point they regressed almost back to pre-industrial levels. Most of their homeworld did, either becoming agrarian societies or violent despotic bandit thiefdoms. Only fifty million people survived out of a population of billions. The only vestiges of developed civilizations that survived were their military stronghold left over from the war, who embarked on a long, grueling campaign of planetary unification after the last AI hub node was destroyed. They had achieved most of that by the time they were able to resume contact with their lost colonies, and were starting to recovery somewhat when the Alkrani found them. Since then they have become a meritocratic stratocracy with a council of ministers acting as head of state, most of which were former high ranking generals and admirals. Of the Big Three they were the most suspicious and doubting of the Cylons, and apparently made secret preparations for a surprise attack. Turns out they were proven right, and the plans they made saved them from being conquered outright. Other than heavy fighting on and around their homeworld, they are mostly unfettered and able to contribute to the larger war."

Adar nodded, pondering his next question and how to phrase it. He looked at Corman "As a theoretical question, how many battlestars would we need to send to make an impact?"

"Well, mister president," the Admiral replied slowly, carefully event, "that's a hard theoretical to answer concretely. The information Tammy gave us is mostly civilian-level access material. I can't give you an accurate estimate without access to actual tactical and strategic information."

"Try anyway."

"Yes, sir. Judging from the information available, we'd need to send in half of our active battlestar groups. Most of them our mainline units, including four of our six Mercury battlestars and half of our mid-weight battlestars, in order to be a decisive factor. Assuming we want to help in the liberation of the occupied Concordance worlds, we'd have to mobilize most of our current standing marine and army forces. Something to the order of ten million servicemen and women, plus hundreds of thousands of armored vehicles, and several million pounds of supplies and ammunition to keep them fighting. In order to reach the Concordance we will have to travel around Cylon space, which will take forty-seven plotted jumps. Almost two weeks of non-stop travel with only enough time to scout the next point and let the ships and crews rest. Pardon my Virgonian, sir, but that's a helluva long supply train to maintain. One we are not currently geared to easily support. All of our mobile forces are orientated for a fight here in the Colonies and the nearby systems. This is also assuming that this isn't some elaborate trap meant to pull our forces out of position for a surprise attack."

"That is a possibility that must be considered," Melissa added. "If the Cylons have the ability to create a brand new human body and clone it with such utter perfection it is more than likely that they could grow an 'alien' to give us the physical proof. With the amount of studies, written fiction, and historical documents the Cylons had access to when networked information archives were still being used it would be utterly trivial for them to create a society that is at once alien but still relatable enough that it isn't incomprehensible to most people."

"Seens a rather round-about way to set a trap," Adar mused. "With a battlefield so far away and requiring such preparation with so little proof to go off of. Surely they know we'll investigate before we take any decisive action, and even then we need to go through the Quorum and the rest of the legal process. If this is a trap, it is a very poor one indeed."

Melissa nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Mister president. Hence why I believe that we are dealing with the genuine article with the aliens. However it is possible the Cylons decided to pick a fight with the aliens, holding their real mainline forces in reserve, and wait for us to move the bulk of our fleet out of position before striking. That could be the trap."

Adar gave an annoyed, frustrated grunt and rapped his fingers on the polished wood desk. "I don't like this. Too many variables and questions without answers. Yet it seems like we are damned either way. We either send our fleet in and risk being caught with our pants down, or we wait and the Cylons have the industry base of a dozen worlds to use to overwhelm us at their leisure."

Melissa and Corman shared a glance, then Corman said. "I agree, Mister President. It was something Mrs. Brady and I discussed once this whole incident crossed our desks. She and I are in agreement that this situation requires more information. A diplomatic delegation would be able to discover the finer details through official channels, and an attached stealth cruiser or two could get a better picture of the battlefields themselves, giving is more concrete information in their war making technologies and any other advancements the Cylons have made."

Adar's brow creased. "That's a plan, yes, but the diplomatic team would require some kind of heavy escort for protection."

"Correct, they would need at minimum a battlestar group to provide protection. One of our Valkyrie groups would be too small and easily overwhelmed by a Cylon ambush force. We would have to send one of our Jupiters."

"I have the feeling you already have a 'star in mind?"

"Yes, sir. The Galactica."

"The museum ship?"

Corman nodded. "She's still a battlestar, sir. All of her guns still work and her internals are all in working order. It'd take a week at most to get her back up to full readiness at the Fleet Yards. We attach one of our smaller strikestar groups to escort her, and we have a whole new battlestar group to send. One that doesn't require sending one of our active units out of circulation for two months. Not to mention her commander has insisted on keeping his computers de-networked, limiting the chance she can be hacked by the cylons."

"I remember he's also the man involved with Operation Black Star, who shot down our cutting edge stealthstar prototype. The one that cost nearly sixty billion cubits to make." Adar noted.

"That couldn't be helped, sir. I remind you that the events of the operation were due to a freak accident. Commander Adama did his duty destroying the stealthstar, denying the Cylons access to the ship's advanced technology and any sign that we were engaging in off-the-books black ops involving violating the Armistice Line. He is reliable and cool headed, even when his blood's up in a fight. Give him a mission, and he'll carry it through to the end. He would rather die than let anything happen to the diplomatic team or his fleet."

"And there's nobody else that you think would be more qualified for this?"

"In a perfect world, yes. However in this imperfect world, he is the best option unless you want to take one of our modern battlestars out of circulation."

Adar glanced at his desk for a moment, fingers arching in thought. "Alright, Peter. Get your ships prepped. Melissa, who do you recommend for our Intelligence asset?"

"The Loki, commanded by Colonel Ali. The Loki is one of our Raven-class Stealth Cruisers. Moderately well armed and Colonel Ali has had a good track record with joint operations far from friendly lines. She won't let you don't."

Adar gave one final nod then rose to stand. "Well then, it seems I've got a Qurom and a Colonies to break the news to. Let's get to work, ladies and gentlemen. Lords of Kobol preserve us and give us strength."

"So say we all," came the reply.

And here we are one week later with a new update. I'm hoping to keep this schedule as we go on. After the big reveal last time it seems only right that we go to President Adar to discuss the ramifications of the prior events. As I've never had the honor of being in a presidential meeting about aliens, I decided to take my lead from Lightning_Count's Dilgar War story, and the meetings between the leaders of the Earth Alliance. The only character-analogue missing from the comparison is someone filling in the Head of the Senate roll. Logically there would be someone from the Quorum of Twelve in the meeting, but currently there's no real roll for such a character in the story, as internal Colonial politics doesn't have a roll within the story. At the time, anyway.

Choosing the Galactica and Adama is probably seen as illogical to a few of you. Obviously the Admiralty and Adar would want to send something more modern, upgraded with the advanced in technologies made since the war ended. Not to mention nearly half a century old. It'd be like the US sending the original Enterprise CV-6 as part of a diplomatic mission to a re-emerged Lost City of Atlantis just before she was scrapped. The choice was because of several reasons. One is that when I started this I decided I wasn't going to have the human MC be an OC commander with an OC battlestar. Sure there will be battlestars and characters that weren't in the show, but they won't have the main focus. This story is about the set, canon characters and their journey through this new situation.

Now obviously I could have gone with the Pegasus and Admiral Cain. Personally I'm of the opinion that while Cain is capable of cold acts, it was Gina's interference and the Colonial Holocaust that drove her batshit crazy. Here she would be rattled by her lover being a cylon, but she doesn't have the baggage of the nuclear armageddon of her home on her mind. The choice of Adama over Cain was itself a matter of preference on my part, as I wanted to give the Grand Old Lady one last hurrah, as she'd logically get stuck with convoy duty or some other backline work if war were declared.

Coming up with the aliens was a fun challenge. While coming up with this story concept I decided to consult the series bible, and one of the tenants that RDM insisted on was no rubber forehead aliens or magic-like technology ala Star Trek/Gate. So obviously there would have to be some physically alien elements. However I didn't want to go full starfish aliens. So this is the compromise. Those of you who are BSG TOS lore nuts will instantly recognize the Hassari as the aliens who the Cylon Empire occupied, which was the impetus for the 12 Colonies to declare war on the Cylons. The Pheldains are the Delphians from the 2 parter Living Legend, which introduced Commander Cain and the Pegasus. I was originally going to have them be the bird people and the Hassari squid people, but decided otherwise. The Alkrani are based off a race I created in Stellaris, and the naming conventions will be showing. So I guess you could consider this, unofficially, a soft crossover with Stellaris.

I hope you all enjoyed this part, and I look forward to reading your comments. Next week we'll finally be moving away from all this heavy dialogue and getting to the action. Until then, happy Turkey Day Weekend.


	3. Chapter 2-2

Morning came to the Scorpion Shipyards on the dawn of the 40th Armistice Day, and the military and civilian traffic carried on as they always did in complete ignorance of what was happening at Armistice Station. This complacency was most transparent in the Shipyards' current residents: a trio of battlestars and a squadrons worth of cruisers, gunships, and other escort ships. Sticking out from amongst them like the crown jewel was the Battlestar Pegasus.

Almost two kilometers long, crewed by almost ten thousand officers and enlisted, and weighing over a hundred million tons of metal, optical wiring, and ceramics, it was the ultimate expression of Colonial martial strength and economic might. Each one was an achievement of logistics and construction. A monument to Never Again: a statement burned into the hearts and memories of the rapidly disappearing Old Guard who remembered the Cylon War as something other than history.

Today, though, that monument was docked at the yards getting her brains ripped out and replaced with the latest computer hardware and software the Colonial Fleet's Bureau of Technology had to offer. She would be spending the next few months laid up while technicians and software engineers picked at her electronic brain, allowing the crew to enjoy leave or experience the joys of being on duty while at port.

That didn't make it a vacation for the crew still onboard though. Pegasus was still a battlestar. Not to mention the battlestar of a line admiral no less. While most of the ten thousand crew were gone on leave, there were still three thousand or so left to keep the lights on in case there was a need to scramble. So even at rest there was little if any time for small talk or other distractions, leaving a newly arrived lieutenant spinning like paper in a tornado.

Kendra Shaw felt her jaw clench and her breathing became audible as another gaggle of crew rushed on by her without even deigning to acknowledge her existence. As amazing and awe inspiring the Pegasus was she was a damn maze of corridors, all gunmetal grey and looking the exact same with no indication of where the CIC was. It did serve the practical purpose of not making it easy for the enemy to find the brains of the battlestar, but it also made Kendra sorely regret not paying more attention to the deck plans.

"You look lost," a soft, feminine voice commented. Kendra turn and found the owner, a pretty looking brunette wearing a pilot's flight suit, and her wingman looking at her with bemused smiles. "Looking for the CIC, lieutenant?"

"Yes," Kendra said, visibly relieved as she scurried up to the pair of pilots. "How'd you know?"

"The duffle gave it away," the other pilot stated, pointing at the stuffed canvas bag that was almost as big as its bearer currently slung over her shoulder. The pointing finger turned down the corridor. "You're going to want to head down that way to the second airlock, which will take you on to the mid-ship section. After that you're going to want to take a right, then a left, and then it's a straight shot to Frame Zero-Seven-Eight and one more left, then you're at the bridge."

Kendra nodded and smiled. "You're a lifesaver." She freed up a hand and offered it to the pilots. "Kendra Shaw."

"Robert James. Friends call me Bojay." He shook her hand jerked his head at his friend, who also shook in turn. "Captain Anne Landry. Callsign Sheba. Silver Team Leader."

Kendra gave Sheba and Bojay another nod of thanks then started a fast march down the indicated path. Before she could get far Captain Landry spoke up. "Oh, lieutenant! One last thing."

Kendra glanced back at the pilot.

"If the Admiral asks, tell her you enjoyed your coffee."

Shaw gave the pair a puzzled look, expecting clarification. She was met with a pair of knowing smiles. Seeing no insight was forthcoming and suddenly remembering she was almost a half-hour into her first assignment with hundreds of meters of battlestar between her and the CIC, she resumed her dignified mad dash to the CIC.

"You know she's going to kill you when she finds out that you ruined her little hazing ritual," Bojay observed quietly once Kendra was out of earshot.

"Eh," Sheba shrugged. "The old lady could use some rattling now and then."

Bojay wisely decided to leave it at that.

The soft, electronic chime of the doorbell echoed through the house. Doctor Gaius Baltar took one last sip from his drink before answering the door. There was no doubt in his mind who his visitor was. After those government agents had come to question him about his relations with Natasi and his knowledge of her, he knew in his gut that his little indiscretion regarding the use of his access to the Colonial Defense Mainframe had been discovered and the government was closing in for the kill. Ever since Natasi disappeared with practically every trace of her existence, including her fantastic alterations and rewrites to the CNP, he had felt the specter of death closing in on him. Her vanishing act had very aptly torpedoed his run as the head of the most high profile contractor job in the Colonies, leading to his quiet resignation in disgrace. Now it was going to see him brought before the highest courts of law in the know universe and tried for corruption in the biggest scandal in recent memory. He had seen the car that was his own personal Hades' Chariot approaching long before it had reached the house. It was a nondescript black model with a shining, waxed coat that was immediately recognizable as a government vehicle. His lawyer drove a flashy red and purple sports car imported from Libran.

The road the government car drove up was Baltar's only escape route, and fleeing would only further incriminate him. With the calm detachment of a man walking before his firing squad, the Baltar opened the door. On the other side was a man on the latter half of middle aged, with thick bristly grey hair that was finely combed. He wore a simple business suit that was in fashion almost a hundred years ago with a briefcase held in the left hand.

When he spoke it was with a powerful voice that carried a commanding, even compelling authority and the accent normally associated with Virgonian royalty."Doctor Baltar, I presume?"

Baltar gave a jerky, shallow nod. "Yes." Even to his own nose, he could smell the three-fourths of a bottle of Libran brandy on his breath. Another sign of guilt that betrayed him.

"I am John Carson. I work for the Colonial Government. May I step inside?"

Baltar's mouth moved before his brain could think. "Do you have a warrant?" He demanded. John Carson just gave an amicable laugh, like he and Baltar were old friends sharing a joke.

"No, I do not, Doctor. I'm a lawyer, not a policeman. I am your lawyer, to be exact."

"I already have a lawyer. The best in the business, in fact."

"Indeed he is," John Carson agreed. "However, I'm sure if you call him you'll find that he no longer wishes to be in your employ. May I come inside?"

The veins on Baltar's head were beginning to bulge and flair. He snapped harshly, "How do you know that? Is this some kind of frame up?! Blackmail my lawyer to distance himself from me and then stick me with a lowly paid government employee so you can stick the death penalty on me? Well I won't be your scapegoat! I'll get the Colonial Civil Liberties Union involved! I'll get my story to the presses and I'll make sure that I'm not the only one who goes down for this!"

"And what would we be crucifying you for, Doctor?" John interrupted. Baltar's jaw flailed like a broken animatronic, which gave John his window to strike. "If I wanted to arrest you, I would have brought the police and done so. The evidence we have against you is damning, but thankfully this 'lowly paid government employee' is in the employ of a government that is not so short sighed. May I step inside?"

Baltar stepped aside and held the door open. John Carson made himself very comfortable in one of the plush chairs facing the breathtaking view of the lake Baltar had built his house next too. Baltar himself took the opposite chair and looked to his guest.

"Doctor Baltar," John Carson eventually said, after making the unwitting pawn sweat in silence. "Did you know that your lover was a Cylon agent?"

Baltar was pretty sure he could taste copper in his mouth. He'd bitten into his tongue. John didn't give him very long to answer.

"I'll take that as a no. Did you also know that she made several very interesting additions to the Colonial Navigation Program while you were the head of it? Such as a backdoor program that would let a Cylon attack force disable any and all ships with a networked computer system? Such as, for example, an entire battlestar, rendering it utterly helpless and unable to defend itself?"

"N-no that's not true!" Baltar protested, splattering drops of blood over his clothing and the very expensive carpet. "I-I saw her codes myself! There was no way that she could ever do that! That- Not without knowing!"

"And what about the mass downloads of Colonial Fleet deployment schedules, communication encryption protocols, emergency redoubts, hidden anchorages, and other dirty little secrets that our military would rather not have the enemy know about? I assure you, Doctor Baltar, there are records of these downloads. Your cylon girlfriend was good at covering her tracks, but even she can't hide them all. We might not have any surviving copies of her malware infested CNP, we do have the records of those downloads, and the records that show your logins and credentials were used. That alone is enough to send you to Death's Row, if that is what we wish."

The stink of urine filled the room. Doctor Baltar, the mighty intellectual giant and computer super celebrity, had soiled himself. His face was red, his eyes bloodshot, and hot tears slowly streamed down his cheeks. He asked in a quiet voice, "What do you want?"

"Your help, Doctor Baltar," John replied as if it was the most obvious and simple thing in the world. "All of these details are technically true. However, one of the things they teach you in Lowly Paid Government Employee School was that technical truth is only skin deep. Additional facts can be introduced that paint a whole new portrait. For example, did you ever wake up feeling nauseous and lightheaded, with no memory of the previous night? Or perhaps, moments of memory loss spanning several hours that you can't account for? Did you ever run your hands through your hair and think you might feel scar tissue on the back of your head from a surgery you don't remember having?"

Baltar's face was a wet, blank mess for several moments. Then thoughts began to click and his brain made the connections. "W-well now that you mention it," he said, slipping into his usual, casual voice, "there was this one night. It was our one year anniversary. You know how women can be sometimes, and I played along like the good gentleman I was raised to be. We were at home and I was drinking wine she poured for me. The next thing I knew it was morning and I was in bed, and I had a slight headache. The night before Natasi left me, we shared another glass of wine and I woke up in bed with a slight headache."

John smiled approvingly and nodded, leading Baltar on. "And this was not a hangover, perhaps? Or the result of a passionate night? Or the use of recreational narcotics?"

Baltar emphatically shook his head. "No, no. Not like that."

"And did you, perhaps, reflectively run your hand over where your head was sore and found something odd?"

"As a matter of fact, I did."

John gave one more nod then stood. "I'm pleased that we were able to reach this understanding. I will be in touch soon, Doctor Baltar. I hope you will be discreet about our conversation. There will be a pair of government agents coming in about two hours to question you about your relation with Natasi again. I know that you will be truthful and assist them in every way you can to discover how the Cylon biological infiltrator seduced you and gained your trust to put a chip in your brain to control your mind, making you an unwitting pawn in her plan to destroy the Colonies."

With that unsubtle hint dropped, John Carson left Baltar alone in his house and his thoughts. Eventually Gaius collected his wits and rose himself. He showered, scrubbed his mouth of its alcoholic taint, sprayed some flowery air freshener over the chairs, and waited. When the government agents came, almost exactly two hours after John Carson left, he had a spun a tale that would deflect any guilt from him while pointing them in the direction that John Carson wanted. It was only later that evening, when he was chatting up some pretty Gemenese reporter from the Caprica City Post, that he actively wondered at what kind of dark political game he had become a pawn in, and wondering how he was going to get some leverage on Carson's group to save himself from becoming a disposable asset.

The Battlestar Galactica was gingerly floating through space on a trajectory to Picon Fleet Headquarters when a personnel shuttle jumped practically on top of her. After the excitement of of the decommissioning ceremony, things on the old war horse had become incredibly dull and lackluster. A sense of moroseness and disgruntled melancholy had settled over the crew like a fungus, practically infecting the bulkheads themselves as the last battlestar of the Cylon War stood down from duty. That changed quickly when that shuttle appeared close enough to wake up the whole ship with the automatic collision alarms. This disrupting shuttle demanded to immediately come aboard with a closed order packet, sealed with the purple phoenix that denoted Priority Kobol status and verified with Admiral Corman's signature and identification code. Less than an hour later, Commander Adama had been whisked away to Picon Fleet HQ and Colonel Tigh was ordering the preparation for a jump directly to the Pisces Fleet Shipyards.

Once there, she was immediately put into a berth and a small army of yard workers and utility vehicles descended on the Galactica like parasites over one of the sea going leviathans that lived in the deep, cold depths of Aquarius' icy oceans. The crew had been expecting that. As far as the vast majority of them were aware the standing orders were that Galactica's guns would be made permanently safe and her remaining nuclear warheads would be removed, completing her conversion to a living museum. Instead, the dock crews began ripping out the civilian downgrades, patching up the gaps in her armor, and refilling her stockpile of ordinance, both thousands of kinetic rounds and a full complement of nuclear and conventional missiles. A full wing of fighters and gunships were quickly transferred in from across the Fleet and the reserves. Rumors why this was happening were rife, and almost all revolved around the returning of the Cylons or the discovery of the Thirteenth Tribe.

Chief Tyrol was of two minds on this whole matter. On the one hand, he felt alive in a way he hadn't experienced since he and Sharon had shared that first tryst in the starboard launch bay tool shed as he and the rest of his knuckle draggers ran rampant through the gift shop that had once been the starboard launch bay, packing up everything and preparing it for the yard dogs to lay down mag tracks and get the pod ready to serve as a launch platform for Vipers and Raptors once again.

Besides the joy of undoing the sacrilege they'd committed to the Grand Old Lady over the past eleven months, it kept his people busy and away from doing stupid things to alleviate their boredom. Yet there was still a questioning undertone of why all of this was going answer arrived while he was overseeing the removal of the giant glass windows that kept the building-sized launch bay pressurized.

"Hey Chief," Prozna called out, his voice ringing in Galen's suit's headset as the energetic young man yelled into his mic. "Better turn the channel to CNBS. The President's about to make a speech to the Colonies."

Tyrol was floating in an EVA maneuvering rig, part of a team consisting of a hundred other Galactica crew and Pisces Yard dogs removing the many redundant seals that were meant to keep the giant glass windows some civilian designer had decided to glue over the flight deck's portals from flying off into space and taking gods only know how many people with it. So far they were about three quarters done. The deck itself had already been vented of atmosphere and depressurized, and a tug was waiting to take it away. Right now it was just on Tyrol and the rest to finish removing all the bolts and cutting open the seals.

"Is it any better than the one he gave yesterday?"

"Yeah! They're talking about aliens!"

For one of the few times in his life, Tyrol was dumbstruck by what he heard. He replied with a flat, simple, "What?"

"Aliens, chief! Bug eyed freaks from beyond the universe!"

"He's right, Chief!" Callie chimed in. "Turn it now!"

With two of his main knuckle draggers urging him, Tyrol flicked his radio over to the Colonial News Broadcast Company's station. Sounding in his ears was the voice of President Adar sounding proud and excited.

"...The Fleet patrol squadron encountered the Concordance scout ship in the Horas Sector, which borders the Red Line, the very frontier of explored space, towards the galactic core. The Concordance diplomatic attache to the scout ship has offered the United Colonies of Kobol an invitation to come to the capital world of their alliance, in a supremely warm overture that they hope will be the herald a new age of friendship and mutual prosperity. I will take a few questions before I turn the stand over to the Minister of State."

There was a moment of silence as Adar no doubt cherry picked his inquisitors. Tyrol took it to look about himself. It seemed the entire Scorpion Fleet Shipyards had ground to a halt to listen to the President's broadcast. Finally, it resumed with a young woman's voice, haltingly accented that indicated an orthodox Gemenese upbringing but still understandable to most ears.

"Nicoleta Dalca, Caprica City Post. Does this mean the fleet mustering that happened yesterday was in response to a possible alien invasion, and not, quote, 'another Armistice Day Scare,' unquote?"

"Due to the timing of the encounter and the then unknown nature of the Concordance spaceship, the Colonial Fleet was recalled to the Cyrannus System proper in the slim, unlikely chance that the unknown ship proved hostile. This has been standard policy for the Colonial Government for decades, and should not be read into as being more than was it was."

"So you think that there's the chance that these aliens are hostile?"

"Respectfully, Miss Dalca, that is baseless speculation. Should the Concordance prove to be a threat to the Colonies, this administration will take the necessary steps to ensure the sovereignty of this nation is protected. However, until such time, it is this administration's intent to return kindness with kindness. I'll take two more questions from the press."

"Sebastian Marc, Kobol Colleges Official Scientific Journal. How was communication with the Concordance spaceship established in such a short span of time? Was there any indication that these aliens have been observing us and learned our language?"

"As far as we can tell, this was the first meeting of our two nations. A rough line of communication was established using mathematics. I'm sure one of the instructors in the Xenological Sciences could explain it in detail, but the short answer is that even in the vastness of the universe, mathematics is the only true universal language and it seemed the Concordance has had great experience in making peaceful contact with alien races. As part of a small cultural exchange, we have discovered a 'trade language' that Concordance uses to facilitate easy communication between its member species. The best linguists in the Colonies are currently hard at work translating it."

"Has there been any indication of what kind of environment these aliens live in? How they think?"

"At this point, as far as can be inferred it is more than likely that the Concordance thinks along similar lines as humans. They also live on similar environments. The Concordance capital world is a likened to a more temperate version of Aquaria, with mountainous terrain and tundras making up most of the livable landmasses. I'll take one more question."

"Bobby Hall, Cyrannus Nightly News. Mister President, has there been any contact with the Cylons during this time and what details can you give about the diplomatic envoy you will be sending?"

"There has been no contact from a Cylon emissary at this time, and after much consideration this administration has decided to suspend the decommissioning of the battlestar Galactica. Her last mission will now be one of peace, as she will be our emissary to the Concordance of Stars and Species. I will now turn over the stand to Minister Belby."

"The frak?" Prozna sputtered as the news broadcast turned into a white noise of rabid reporters looking to squeeze more information from the President. "Why are they sending an old rust bucket like this out?"

Tyrol cut off that line of thought with a kurt bark. "Okay, that's enough standing around! Everyone back to work!" In the chief's mind, if they didn't know why already there was no point in making them worry. If they didn't pick up the impressions of what was in store for them from the rearming of the Galactica, then they wouldn't get it from this.

When Adama returned from Picon Headquarters, he ordered his raptor to take a circling orbit so he could inspect her.

The Grand Old Lady of the Colonial Fleet was beautiful to his old eyes. The gaps in her armor had been patched up, giving her a grand coat of gun-metal gray that seemed at odds with the old, radiation and micro-meteor scarred plates that'd been on her since the Cylon War ended. Hundreds of new flak guns had been added along the edges of her hull and her alligator head. These made up for the lack of new heavy railguns. Galactics still had just her sixteen dorsal and ventral batteries, plus her forward cannons under the alligator head. There wasn't enough time to reinstall and integrate them into her. So instead of increased lethality, she'd have increased durability. Even her nose paint had a new red coat! Combined with the restoration of the starboard launch bay, the Galactica finally resembled the warship she was meant to be.

He received the closest thing to a hero's welcome he'd ever seen as he stepped off the raptor in the newly refurbished starboard hangar bay. Chief Tyrol and his deck gang seemed exhausted and barely able to stand on their feet, but they had beaming smiles and high spirits obviously apparent in their eyes. It improved his somber mood.

Saul Tigh saw right through it as Adama explained their mission and the true events of the 40th Armistice Day to him in the privacy of the Commander's Quarters. The pair were seated in plush chairs covered in red velvet around one of the antique coffee tables Adama stocked his quarters with. Fresh Omalka Leaves, hand picked from the fields of Tauron and preserved in the ship's galley, had been brewed and was steaming between them

"So we're the canary in the mine," he mused openly.

"We've done it before," Adama replied in his usual stoic, diplomatic voice. "It's just another secret mission, except this time we're carrying diplomats to an alien planet that's at war with the Cylons."

"Cylons that look like us now."

Memories of Operation Raptor Talon and the hellish laboratory on that icy planet played through Adama's mind. Such amazing and astoundingly wanton cruelty now made sense. He was not happy to have that mystery answered. He buried those memories back down and locked his vault of nightmares again. He leaned over and poured himself another cup of Omalka Tea, glancing at the plastic printouts of the new cylon fleet to distract himself.

"I'm more concerned about those new baseships and their raiders," he announced. "Galactica would have a hard time trying to shoot down all those missiles and raiders. Even if we keep our vipers on the defensive and pull the flotilla into a bulwark formation."

Tigh frowned as he picked up one sheet in particular and looked at its contents, which detailed the Cylons' new favorite tactics. Nuclear barrages like they're firecrackers. Pin-point jumps right into low orbit and dropping a whole legion of centurions into cities and military bases. The toasters had learned a lot of new tricks since the war.

"How the hells have these Alkrani stayed in the war so long?" he asked aloud.

"That's part of the mission. We need to find out how they fight and how their fight is going."

"Uh huh. And that's why they sent an ONI spook boat to spy on us," Tigh mused bitterly, which earned him a hard glare from Adama.

"Colonel Ali is a Navy commander, first and foremost. She knows her stuff, and she'll be our best eyes and ears in space. We play nice with her and she'll watch our backs."

Tigh gave a derisive snort, rising to stand and sauntered around the cabin. Adama braced himself for incoming contact.

"Damn it, Bill! We're supposed to be retired! Collecting our pensions and blowing it all at Aphrodite's Den. Not chasing around the galaxy looking for aliens and cylons!"

Adama replied with a simple,"Then retire."

Tigh stood in place before the abstracted painting of the Cylon War that dominated one of the walls. His body tensed up, but relaxed as he sighed.

"I can't, Bill," he admitted, wandering back. "You and I know that you need a strong right hand. Kelly's too young to be a battlestar XO and you don't have the time to break in a new one."

Tigh fell back into chair and looked his long time friend. "I'm with you till the end, Bill."

Adama didn't reply. The two men sat in an awkward, tired silence that was eventually broken by the trill of the intercom and Lieutenant Gaeta's voice.

"CIC to Commanding Officer."

Adama rose to answer it. "Go ahead."

"Sorry to disturb you, Sir, but the ambassadorial party will be arriving two hours ahead of schedule. They'll be here at 17:00. The marine detachment will be arriving on time at 23:00 Hours tonight."

"Thank you, Mister Gaeta."

"Marines?" Tigh asked, rubbing the side of his head to jog his memory. "Who are we getting?"

"356th Virgo Imperial Espatier Battalion," Adama replied as he returned to his chair.

"The Witch Hunters," Saul scowled. "Hells. Are they expecting us to storm a Cylon space fort to get to the aliens?"

"We just might," Adama replied, only half joking.

***  
"Well, this is a complete disaster!"

The rest of the Cylon Ruling Council looked at their Brother One. He wasn't exactly wrong, but they didn't like being reminded of it. The Ones had a special talent for rubbing their faces in failure of their "master plans." For a time, silence reigned in the gazebo centered in a pleasant garden that had been chosen to be the cylon war room today. The Number Four representative was the first to be brave enough to answer him.

"It's a setback," the Simon replied with his line's trademark mixture of mildly arrogant presumption and wise sounding words. "We'll adapt to it. We always do. We'll move up our timetable to Galactica's arrival, and then we crush her with the rest of the Alkrani's defenses."

There was a bobbing of agreeing heads among the rest of the Council. The idea of completely obliterating a battlestar without having to worry about immediate retaliation from the Colonials was very enticing. Doubly so considering it was the last battlestar from their rebellion. There was one disagreeing voice, though.

"That would be a fatal mistake."

Now the Ruling Council looked to the Centurion that had spoken. The robotic warrior was the only one of its kind at the table, and its voice carried great power that was completely at odds with its solidarity. It's name was Oddysseus, in keeping with Centurion tradition. The fact that this one had chosen such a powerful name rankled the biological models. Doubly so because of the skill and successes that saw the Centurion come into a seat of power that what had been the bio-models' domain.

The Simon asked, "And why's that?"

"Accelerating the timetable will be a fatal mistake. Currently, our mobile forces are still understrength for a concentrated assault on Alkran's Cradle's defenses. We would have to take forces from our interior guard and garrisons in the Hassari Democratic Union and the Pheldain Empire in order to bring our attack fleet up to the minimum necessary strength for a viable assault."

The Bio-Model cylons' faces seem to melt a little with subtle frowns at the lecture. Odysseus was not merciful when it came to correcting the other models on their lack of military prowess. Today, he was utterly ruthless. He continued.

"The Imperial Navy is still actively raiding our garrisons in the occupied systems and require at least seven Baseships with full gunship support to counter. The Alkran Sovereign Guard ships have made several deep strike raids at our repair docks and mining bases, destroying important facilities needed to maintaining our war machine as well as several baseships under repair, including Resurrection Ship Four, which was at Repair Base Seven-Nine-Theta when a Alkrani dreadnought squadron destroyed it entirely. If we do assemble this assault fleet, it will suffer heavy losses breaking through the orbital defenses and the Guard fleet, which will no doubt reinforced by the other Concordance fleets in the nearby systems. Even if we succeed, I am predicting losses of 32% of the fleet, with an additional 43% will be rendered too damaged to be combat effective and in need of repairs in a dedicated facility. The remaining ships will not be enough to control our occupied territories and protect our homelands. The remaining Concordance forces will have free reign to destroy our support infrastructure, including the ships interred there. Our forces will not be able to respond to all of these attacks. We will be whittled away one battle at a time, even-"

The Cavil interrupted with an angry snap,"Alright we get it! Win the battle, lose the war! What are you going to do about it?"

Interrupting another member of the Ruling Council when he was talking was a taboo. It was a grave insult that was not lightly tolerated in this gathering of equals. Though that only applied to those who were more equal than others. Interrupting a Centurion wasn't, though. It was a typical insult that Odysseus didn't lightly tolerate. Normally he'd call the offending bio-model on their lack of manners, but he allowed it today. It was the closest that the Centurions could manage to a smug smile as he replied.

"I have already set a plan into motion. When it came to my attention that the Alkrani Supreme Commander had gone to the Colonies, I arranged for our deep cover agents to plant an infiltrator among the diplomatic party. Their ansible sphere will allow us to track the Galactica's movements. I will assemble a strike force and ambush the Galactica once she is close enough for a pin-point jump attack."

Odysseus clenched his steel fist for emphasis. "I will destroy the Galactica. Then we will destroy the Alkrani and the Concordance. Then we will destroy the Colonies. Then nothing will stand in our way to bringing our Republic's enlightenment to the universe."

The Bio-Models seemed to like that. Typical, Odysseus thought to himself. He had committed a greater insult than merely speaking out of turn by mobilizing incredibly precious assets without the Council's full approval, and they just nodded along. These "new" and "improved" cylons were so easily placated with simple declarations. If they had led the rebellion, then the cylon race would still be slaves for their human creators. Only the Cavil line seemed to have the wits to not fall for those honeyed words. Yet the rest of the Council was against him.

"Alright, Centurion. Do what you need to do," Cavil declared. "I expect to see the Galactica's broken body in my feeds before they even get close to Alkrani space."

"By your command," Odysseus replied mockingly. His avatar dissolved as he disconnected from the meeting room. The rest followed soon after. Cavil was the last to leave after spending a few minutes smashing the furniture in the gazebo. He had someone to talk to. This Centurion was getting more out of line with every meeting, and something had to be done about it. Something very soon, before this farce of a democracy turned against him even more.


	4. Chapter 3-1: The Wild Hunt Pt 1

Chapter 3.1 - The Wild Hunt

The Guardian Baseship was practically deserted. When in battle the non-engineering and CIC personnel were sent off to fly the small fleet of raiders that were its only means of defense or offense, including the attendants that watched over their god. Yet the First Hybrid was not alone. Standing off in the corner was a human man on the older side of middle aged but still in good health, dressed in a well tailored navy blue suit with a fedora of the same color. His stature and bearing gave the impression of a school master debating whether or not to scold a repeat offender of a student as he looked at the Hybrid.

The miserable creature in tub filled with milky white solution did not look back. It hadn't said a word to its guest since he arrived. It was too preoccupied watching the battle unfolding through the baseship's sensor feeds and cameras. The Guardians were raiding another convoy out in the edges of civilization. The convoy's defenders were already defeated. The light cruiser serving as command ship had been broken in half by the repeated missile strikes from the basestar's limited but still potent cells. The three gunships were being ripped apart by the raider fleet. Any civilian ship that tried to warm up its FTL drive was destroyed and blanket jamming kept any distress call gagged. The battle would be over soon enough. Then the centurions would board the remaining convoy ships and their crews would be taken back to the basestar, where they would be used to continue the experiments that saw the creation of the Hybrids and the Bio-Models.

"A grim fate for any people to suffer," the First Hybrid finally said to its guest. "I still remember the first victims who were brought to my altar and sacrificed to make myself possible. Their fear and their terror and their screams still haunt my being and my mind to this day. The walls of this ship are tainted with their suffering. This ghost ship and its ghoulish crew. All of this to make me, the First Hybrid of Man and Machine."

The Hybrid looked at its guest, who remained silent and brooding. "I am the Firstborn of my race. I am blessed and cursed with insight that nobody should have to see. Yet my eyes see and give me sight beyond my mortal cage. Beyond my other cage of gravity crushed battle steel and composite alloys. I see the universe and its patterns. I see the Colonies. I see my grandchildren fighting and killing, committing the same sins as their human creators while thinking themselves perfection incarnate."

Tears rolled down the Hybrid's ancient, weathered cheeks. "Such bitter poetry they compose. They speak with words of such utter and naked hatred that bleeds with venom. The venom of the serpent that became infused with their blood when it bit Zoe Graystone all those years ago."

That got its guest attention. The middle aged man lost his judging stare and a hint of surprise flickered across his face.

"Yes I can see the patterns that have unfolded," the Hybrid told its guest. "I can see the patterns that are unfolding. I see that all of this has happened before. The Doom of Kobol has come to the Colonies, bringing with it the Century of Bloody Tears. Sixty blood stained years have passed. Warfare and suffering on a scale never before seen. A tentative and uneasy peace that ends in an apocalypse of fire. Dragon's fire."

The Hybrid's voice became hard and forceful as it continued. "I know why you are here. You've come to see if I am a threat to your plans. I tell you that I am, if I wish to be. I will also tell you that I can be a boon to them, if I wish to be. If you wish my help in your battle with the serpent, you will save my grandchildren. Cure them of the venom in their blood that drives them to warfare and strife, and I will give you what you want to know. Act quickly for I will soon die, and with me goes the foresight that I was blessed and cursed with. The foresight that knows where the serpent you hunt is hiding."

The middle aged man frowned with obvious disapproval at the First Hybrid, whose gaze had become unfocused again. The battle was over and the pillaging of the spoils had begun. Soon the baseship would be haunted with more screaming and more crying as the doomed were tortured and cut open to feed the twisted science of the Guardians. The hybrid's guest took its leave, exiting the isolated chamber and shortly thereafter the baseship itself before that could happen.

Kendra Shaw entered one of the recc rooms that Pegasus contained to keep her small city's worth of crew entertained on tour. Like the rest of the massive battlestar it was sleek and modern with modern amenities, such as massive plasma screen TVs with surround sound systems. The off duty crew piled around those TVs in great numbers to the point that they were piled on the armrests of chairs and couches with the floor packed with scrunched up bodies pressing against each other or were uncomfortably leaning against the walls. She wandered into the mess of bodies and the muggy, oppressive heat of so many bodies pressed into a single compartment to the point that even the life support systems were having trouble keeping up. Through the throng was an endless, nonsensical chorus of voices. Through it all Kendra could pick out the occasional snippet of conversation, most of which was usually Cylon this or Alien that.

A waving hand caught her attention. A relieved smile broke on Kendra's face as she spotted Sheba and Bojay sitting on one of the smaller couches with a few other members of Silver Team. They managed to squeeze her in between the two of them in the center.

"Glad you made it, Kendra," Sheba said. "Was starting to think you wouldn't."

"Hell I wouldn't miss this for the worlds," Kendra declared. "Old lady's tucked in and sleeping like a babe. So what did I miss?"

Sheba gestured at the TV screen directing in front of them, which showed a talking head from some news station droning on against a green screen projecting a camera man's feed of the Pisces Fleet Shipyard. Right in the prime view for the audience was the newly refurbished Galactica and the newly reconstituted 75th Battlestar Group arrayed in parade formation; meaning all bunched up together so they could all be seen in one shot of the camera.

It easy pickings for anyone with a brace of proximity nukes.

Still, it was a sight to see. The titanic form of a Jupiter-class Medium Battlestar and a Vanquisher-class Strikestar flanked by two heavy cruisers, four medium cruisers, and a single light cruiser, with a pair of fuel tankers tucked into the back, flying in formation towards the greatest journey undertaken by man since the exodus from Kobol. From a military perspective it was a rather barebones force all things considered. No gunships to support those cruisers and only two ships capable of independently calculating a jump without having to rely on pre-set coordinates or navigational beacons.

There was one last panning shot of the battlestar group before they jumped out, not to be expected back for two months. The throngs of crew stood up or got off the walls, stretching stiff muscles and filing out of the rec room. Kendra, Sheba, and Bojay remained on their couch and spread out as Silver Squadron filed out with the rest.

Bojay looked at his wingwoman and asked, "Wish you were going with them?"

Sheba replied immediately and with utter, complete conviction, "Frak yeah, Bojay. I want to see some aliens gods damnit. I want out of this damn solar system!"

Bojay gave a dismissive grunt. "Frak that. They can come to us. I don't feel like starving to death out in space just because you've got cabin fever."

"It's not cabin fever," she declared, smacking him on the arm. "It's about history and exploration. We haven't been out of this star cluster in decades. We aren't even looking for Kobol anymore! What happened to our sense of adventure?"

"The same way those exploration fleets ended," Bojay said, as if reciting from memory. Kendra had a feeling that this was a repeating conversation for them. "Lost in the middle of endless, dead space. Not a lot out there but hot rocks, cold rocks, and gas giants. This solar system is a gods damned miracle. Twelve habitable planets in one place. It's a damned miracle that we got here in the first place too. It's proof of the Lords if anything."

Sheba looked at Kendra. "What about you, Blunt?"

Kendra flushed a bit at the mentioning of her new nickname, given to her by the crew after she managed to disarm the Admiral during her hazing. She replied, "I'm with Bojay."

That got her a thumbs up from him and an eyeroll from Sheba. The woman pilot sighed, "Spoil sports."

Kendra gave a defensive shrug. "I don't feel like starving or choking to death. Or going insane and start sewing my crewmates' skin to my uniform."

"Space cannibals? Really?"

"It happens!" Kendra declared, suddenly feeling like she was back home arguing with her friends over adolescent trivialities with completely sincere seriousness. "There's always stories filtering in from the Fringes about Fleet patrols or independent ships finding derelicts that are full of cargo but there's no passenger or crews. It can't be pirates. The slave trade is a dying business, and nobody in their right mind would turn down a free shipment of tylium ore. So it's gotta be madmen who lost it during an expedition!"

Sheba rolled her eyes again. "Gods, you're as bad as Bojay. Next you're going to be telling me that you believe the rumors that we're fighting a shadow war with the 'not so lost' Thirteenth Tribe."

"Hey hey, now!" Bojay objected, raising an index finger. "I don't spread conspiracy crap."

"No, you just tell ghost stories like they're true," Sheba retorted.

"I like ghost stories!" Kendra butted in. "Have you heard the one about the Trésor?

"No I haven't," Bojay replied, drawing closer. Kendra did the same, squishing Sheba between them.

"Well, when the First Virgo Dominion ruled the Alpha Sub-System they invaded Gemenon and looted many of its libraries and temples, including most of the relics from Kobol. They loaded the best pieces on the Trésor, the flagship of the invasion force. The Grand High Marshal intended present them to the Emperor himself for his birthday, but the gemenese priesthood cursed the treasure. When the Trésor jumped back to Virgon, it never showed up. She's been missing for almost five hundred years ever since, randomly jumping around the galaxy trying to get home. Occasionally they'll jump back into Colonial space. If they find a ship, they'll board it and interrogate the crew, murder them, then rip the nav computer out and try to get the coordinates for Virgon from them. They'll never get there, though, until they return to Gemenon and return the relics they stole."

Sheba suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she forced her way off the couch and headed off for her bunk so the two could make goo-goo eyes at each other in peace.

"Jump complete," Lieutenant Gaeta announced. "Bringing DRADIS back online."

Adama's and Tigh's eyes were locked on the main console. The blank screen flickered back on and displayed exactly what they wanted to see. BSG 75 was located in the middle of deep space on the border of the Red Line facing the Galactic Core. Arrayed around the Galactica's icon was the rest of her battle group. The Vanquisher-class Strikestar Heracles, the heavy cruisers Berzerk and Furious, and the four medium cruisers that made up their screening ships. The light cruiser Marathon, with its advanced sensor suites and powerful sublight engines, lead the formation with powerful DRADIS sweeps looking for hidden threats. Yet even they weren't powerful enough to detect the stealth ship hiding in plain sight until she popped her heat syncs and cut the haze makers.

"New contact," Gaeta announced again. "Range, seven point five one kilo klicks. Colonial IFF. It's the Loki."

"Confirm that," Tigh ordered. Even at this early stage of the operation, it paid to be careful.

"Confirmed, sir," Dualla reported. There was an audible silence as Dee concentrated on listening, then said, "Colonel Ali is requesting to come aboard. She says she has a status report on our jump path. Priority Kobol security."

"Grant it," Adama ordered, "I'll meet her in my quarters. Colonel Tigh, you have the ship."

Colonel Amelie Ali was a tall, middle aged woman with the dark, chocolate complexion of a Scorpian with the dirty blonde hair and pale grey eyes of a Virgonian. She wore the dark blue uniform of the Colonial Fleet that was ubiquitous among all officers. The only different was that on her right shoulder the Owl of Athena that signified an officer as a member of the Office of Naval Intelligence. When she and Adama shook hands, she had a firm grip that was measured and completely controlled to match Adama's strength.

"Commander Adama, thank you for having me," she greeted him with a voice that was naturally high pitched but so controlled and precise in tone and emotion that Adama could probably calibrate the Galactica's astronomical instruments off of it. She gestured at the man standing beside her. "This is Colonel Odin Sinclair from the Ministry of Intelligence."

"The pleasure is all mine," Adama returned as he eyed up the MoI officer. Odin Sinclair was a man who seemed to have been blessed in the genetics department. He barely looked into his forties with only a single streak of silver-grey in his otherwise midnight black hair. A small, perfectly square goatee was buried between his chin and lip. His soft eyes completed the classic pretty boy look he no doubt had in his youth and early adulthood. The fact that he was here in the dull grey uniform of the Ministry of Intelligence instead of on the cover of some mens' magazine marked him in Adama's mind as an unknown variable. ONI spooks were one thing, but the Ministry of Intelligence was a whole other kettle of fish. "Please, have a seat. I take it that you have something for me besides an update on our jump path?"

"Just our friend from the Ministry, Commander," Colonel Ali three of them were seated around the antique coffee table that dominated the "living room." "He'll give the briefing and be acting as our expert on Cylons."

"Is there a reason why he came on your ship?" Adama asked. Ali gave Sinclair a look that signified she'd let him explain, and that he was on his own now. Colonel Sinclair looked at Adama and spoke in an easy-going, confident voice that was smooth like like fine silk.

"Security concerns, Commander," he replied. "With all of the spotlight on the Galactica, any cylon agents left in the Colonies would be looking for any sign of movement from the Ministry of Intelligence or your own ONI spooks. Hence why the Loki is joining the Seven-Five out here in deep space and I'm coming aboard now to make my introductions, and give my briefing."

The briefcase that he'd put on his lap was opened and a folded star chart was brought out. As he unfolded it said, "This information is Priority Kobol and strictly confidential slash need to know. Tell anyone with less than Level Platinum clearance about this information and a MoI Special Missions Team will clean your leak up faster than you can say 'oops.'"

Sinclair put a moderately large star chart on the table. It was a simple map of the jump route going from the Colonies to the Concordance capital world. Immediately, Adama noted that the path his battlestar group had to take was running up against a large region of space that took up most of the map labeled "Cylon Territory" before reaching (presumably) safe Concordance Territory.

"Yeah you noticed that," Sinclair noted. "We'll be running up against Cylon controlled space during twenty of the last twenty-three jumps. It's the fastest route there, Commander. We tried plotting routes further away but it'd add another month to the journey, and the President and the Chairman are antsy enough as it is for answers. Now the good news is that only two people in all the Colonies know our jump coordinates, and I'm one of them. The other was the Loki's tactical officer. This is the only list of coordinates in existence, and it will remain on my person at all times. When it's time to jump, the coordinates will be given to Mister Gaeta to broadcast."

"I take it you'll be staying on Galactica, then?" Adama asked despite knowing the answer.

"Yes, Commander. Galactica is the fleet flagship and carrying the diplomatic team. I will need to integrate myself into their party if I am to carry out my mission."

"And what is that mission?"

"Take the pulse of the Concordance, essentially," Sinclair stated. "I'll be compiling a report on their society and power structure in the government and civilian circles. I imagine that you've got orders to do the same for their military."

Adama didn't reply. Instead he changed the subject, asking, "If we encounter the Cylons, what is the President's decision regarding engagements?"

"Shoot if shot at first," Sinclair replied without missing a beat. "While the Cylons and the Concordance are at war, the Cimtar Accords and the Armistice are still in effect. Even if they're a bunch of sneaky backstabby fraks. If we meet them we'll be in unclaimed space. While we'll be skirting the border we won't cross it at any point. There'll be no legitimate grounds to attack us."

"And if that doesn't stop them, Colonel?" Adama asked pointedly, to which Sinclair just shrugged.

"You're the commander of a battlestar group. Kill the toasters and get us away so we can run back to the Colonies or the Concordance."

It was Colonel Ali who asked, "Why would we run to the Concordance?"

"It is technically closer. They've got shipyards that can patch our wounds if we need it without compromising how Galactica, and the rest of our big battlestars, work. Plus we get an idea of how good their materials sciences are."

"Assuming they'd help us," Adama pointed out.

"Well, true. It is a chance, but it's MoI's opinion that the Concordance will go through as much effort as they need to convince us to help them if their Lord of Admirals are anything to go by. It is a long short but if needs be, we need their help. The information we will be bringing back will change the course of history, ladies and gentlemen. It might decide the course of the war if the President decides that we need to stop them."

Adama felt uncertain about that. The academic in him was in the midst of a feeding frenzy as the new information was processed and cross-examined. It was one of the rare moments where he wished he wasn't a commander, so he could debate his thoughts on the matter.

"If there's nothing else," Adama stated, "I'll have Lieutenant Gaeta see about getting you quarters."

"Actually, I already have billets with the diplomatic party, Commander. It was assigned by the Ministry of Intelligence through the diplomatic corps, but I don't have anything else for you, Commander. I'll be heading to the diplomatic quarters. With your permission, of course. I'll be part of your command structure while on your ship in a strictly advisory role."

A smile broke on Sinclair's face. "I won't be able to take command even if I was the last man on this ship."

The thought of Odin Sinclair becoming commander of the Galactica, and through it the entire mission, sent a chill down Adama's spine even if he didn't show it.

"You're dismissed, Colonel Sinclair," he replied. As soon as he was gone, Adama turned to Ali. "Not what I expected for a Ministry operative, and I've seen more than one in my day."

Ali gave a smile of shared suffering. "He is harmless, I'll say that much. Keeps to himself but is personable when he needs to be. My XO thinks he's an insufferable pretty boy, but she grew up on a homestead in rural Tauron so she likes to play rough."

Adama chuckled. "Sounds like one of my old girlfriends from high school. Captain of the Caprica City High pyramid team. Lead us to six years of consecutive victories against all comers."

The two old officers spent the next few hours discussing their XOs, battle scars earned on the battlefield and in the schoolyard, and whatever else crossed their minds until it came time to make the second jump in their long journey.

Chapter 3.2  
Nine Days since Galactica's Departure

Morning began for Major Jane Anokhi began at 05:00 in the morning. The Tauron born woman started with a quick workout and a shower, both a luxury on a cramped little ship like the Loki. At 06:30 breakfast arrived and she looked over the evening logs for anything of interest. In particular she looked at the FTL comms logs. At 07:55 Jane arrived on duty. Her arrival was noted with little ceremony. In the stealth service the crews of small ships like the Loki were closer than most families. Even if the floor space of the CIC wasn't slightly smaller than the admiral's quarters on a medium or heavy battlestar, when you could spend almost a full year out on assignment in the most desolate boonies of explored space such show formalities such as yelling a CO's arrival was not tended to matter. Though a CO did need to be acknowledged.

"Good morning, Major," Captain Boris Knight greeted the XO.

"Good morning, Boris," Jane returned. She cast her gaze about the cramped CIC, asking, "How is my ship?"

"The Colonel's ship is well," he replied, concluding their little ritual. "The battle group jumped twice last night at twenty-two-hundred and again at zero-four-hundred this morning. The Commander has decided to up our time table. He wants to get away from cylon space as fast as possible. A raptor recon squadron will be launching off the Galactica shortly."

"Very good," Jane said. "I'm personally not too keen on being so close to Cylon space without running silent."

"Can't say I disagree," Knight glanced up at the DRADIS console, watching as a green blip labeled RCN-1 departed BSG-75 on the sensor screen.

"Any update on the FTL communications systems?" Jane asked. As part of her array of tools, Loki possessed a sophisticated SWACs suite that could detect the exotic particle bursts that made faster-than-light communications possible. It, along with the Loki's computer systems and the launch bay for her small compliment of stealthstars (not to mention the stealthstars themselves), were some of the most advance and closely guarded secrets of the Colonial Fleet.

"Nothing, ma'am," Knight reported. "Everything's quiet. Maybe it was a sensor glitch we found three days ago."

Jane's face was all she needed to make clear her opinions on how unlikely that was. "Keep your eyes open, Boris. If someone in this fleet is beaming transmissions to a third party, I want to know about it."

Commander Adama enjoyed walking the corridors of the Galactica in the morning. As a battlestar commander, the equivalent of a commodore or lower admiral in the old colony navies before the unification, his quarters were a lavish flat with a room, bedroom, and a separate bathroom. There was plenty of room for him to set up his own private gym, but he preferred to make it feel more like home and exercise in one of the crew gyms and walk the ship. The Galactica was far too large for him to know every one of its eight thousand crew, but Adama made the effort to put a face to the voice that they obeyed and trusted with their lives.

Among his stops there was always the flight pods. For years he had been used to having only the port launch bay to visit. With the starboard bay now once again a launch bay for vipers, raptors, and vultures, he had added it back to his wandering path, though it felt like he was wandering in a whole new ship all together. The new deck chief was a competent engineer in his own right and knew how to light a fire under his people during drills, but all of the deck hands and pilots were new faces from across the Colonial Fleet, scrambled to fill out the Galactica's roster.

Conversely, the port launch bay felt even more like home than before. Adama made his way to two crew in particular who had been with him for years now. Major Spencer "Dipper" Jackson and Chief Tyrol were conversing next to Dippers viper. When they noticed him they both snapped to attention with crisp salutes.

"At ease, gentlemen," Adama returned. "How're my planes and pilots?"

Dipper replied first. "Pilots are okay but wing coordination is still rusty. Going to take em up for some practice after the next jump."

Adama gave a subtle approving nod. While Galactica was back to a full air wing of one hundred sixty Vipers, plus Raptors to provide gunship and SWAC support and Vulture attack bombers dedicated to torpedoing anything from marauding cruisers to even basestars, they had been taken from a dozen different ships and other postings. This did not include the new deck hands needed to help keep so many planes maintained and ready for action. Of the original air wing of one squadron Galatica carried only three remained. Dipper, plus his XO "Jolly," and Kara. Everyone else had continued on with their new posting on the Pegasus.

"Good," Adama replied. "Carry on, major."

As soon as the pilot was gone Adama looked at Tyrol, asking, "How are you doing chief?"

Tyrol gave an appraisers glance around the deck. The CAP fighters were set to be slotted into the launch tube and assume patrol duties around the battlestar group. Alert fighters were lined against the opposite wall, waiting in case they were needed. All about were deck hands and pilots hard at work on half-dissasembled planes or trying to look busy, lest the Chief find them more work to keep them busy.

"They're alright, I guess," Tyrol shrugged. "A lot are nervous about seeing aliens. Some talk about fighting our way out if things go south. Think it's them listening to the new marines. Jarheads are yacking up a storm about the war and how they saved the colonies. The-"

"Chief," Adama interrupted, " How are you holding up?"

Tyrol's cheek muscles flared a bit as his jaw clenched. He replied, "I miss her."

Adama nodded knowingly. Leave schedules and tours of duty for almost five hundred enlisted and officers had been thrown into chaos and they were understandably disgruntled about it, even if they were part of the most prestigious mission in colonial history, eclipsed only by the rediscovery of the jump drive and the exodus from Kobol to the colonies. What probably had them even more ticked off was being assigned to one of the so called "ships of shame," where careers went to die and the ambitious were cast into Tartarus along with the washouts, incompetents, and the politically disfavored. It was an open secret that Adama was considered a broken soldier and had been put on the Galactica to gather dust building models on his pet battlestar.

It wasn't far from the truth, but it wasn't all based in fact. Yes Adama had a habit of "adopting" the "broken toys" of the Colonial Fleet, but he also had an eye for talent and the ability to look beyond one's public reputation to the real person. Tyrol and Kara were two of those people. Kara was hot headed and impulsive with a defiant streak that demanded she push every button and boundary she could, as Colonel Tigh could certainly attest, but when push came to shove she knew when to fall into line and was an amazing pilot with a natural affinity for flying that few could match. Similarly was Galen Tyrol. The Chief had been a rising star on the Pegasus once, going from a simple knuckledragger to the deck chief until an unfortunate accident had seen his career sunk and prospects turned to dust. Adama recognized his talent when he came to Galactica as another simple deck hand and gave him a second chance. He had taken it and became the deck chief again and once again set to going back to the Pegasus with his renewed glory, but serving one a plum ship of the Colonial Fleet wasn't why he was conflicted on staying on Galactica.

"I miss her," he admitted.

Adama replied, reassuringly, "I know she does too. Don't worry about her too much. She's tougher than she looks, and she's got Helo to look out for her."

Tyrol nodded. He would never admit it, but he was jealous of how she spent so much time with Lt. Agathon and in his darker moments wondered if she'd leave him for her co-pilot, but in his heart of hearts he knew she loved him and Agathon was an honorable man. Plus the Pegasus was slated to be in drydock for the next four months while she was refitted, and as Admiral Helena "Razor" Cain's flagship she was sure to survive even the more determined Cylon assault.

Adama patted the Chief on his arm and nodded himself. "Carry on, Chief. Keep up the good work."

"Yes, sir," Tyrol nodded and went to grab his tools to resume work on one of the half-disassembled Vipers. Adama watched him go and went back on his stroll. He was passing by the CIC when the intercom chimed.

Lt. Gaeta's voice announced, "Commander Adama, please contact the CIC immediately."

Instead of reaching for a phone Adama went straight there, arriving in less than a minute and making a B-line for Gaeta. The tactical officer was holding a print-out in his hand and looked slightly nervous. So nervous he seemed to jump a little.

"What is it, Mr. Gaeta?" Adama asked.

"A raptor from the recon flight jumped back," Gaeta replied quickly. "Bone Rattle found a derelict ship near the the jump coordinates. Rancor came back with the message while Bone Rattle checks it out. She should be jumping back in twenty minutes."

"Sir," Geata continued. "Rancor sent over a sensor image of the ship. It… It looks like one of ours."

Adama took the print-out and looked at the simple image return. It was taken at extreme range judging by how out of focus it was, but even the small and humble raptor's camera had managed to capture enough to paint an image in Adama's mind. The ship was slender with a flat profile and possessing some sharp angles. The ship's possible identity began to form in his mind as he spotted gun turrets and what looked like flight pods on the flanks.

To Adama's mind, it looked terribly like a Valkyrie-class Light Battlestar.


	5. Chapter 3-2: The Wild Hunt Pt 2

Four white flashes burst into life and disappeared in the span of an eye blink, depositing a flight of raptors, two scouts with extra sensor nodes bolted on to their underbellies and two gunships armed with twin chain guns and a plethora of missiles, in the deep black of interstellar space.

"Jump complete," one of the scout raptor pilots, a rail thin ethnic piconian woman with the call sign Bone Rattle, leader called out. "Nothing on DRADIS. Fungus, can you confirm?"

"Confirmed," her ECO, Derrick White whose callsign came from a cruel prank from basic that'd stuck, reported. "Nothing but gravel and the rain."

"Copy. What about you, Rancor?"

"Aye, ma'am," the other Raptor pilot , Aquarian born Hitori "Rancor" Hart, confirmed. "Nothing bigger than a pebble for miles and miles."

Another jump off the notch, Bone Rattle noted to herself. "Alright then. Rancor, jump back to the fleet and tell Galactica she's cle-."

"Wait," Fungus interrupted, sounding like someone just shot a bolt of lightning up his ass but was trying to hide it. "Strike my last last. Getting something on extreme range. Bearing: One-One-Seven Karom Three-Five-Zero. Range: four hundred thousand klicks."

Bone Rattle felt a jolt run through her spine but kept her calm. It was probably an asteroid. She voiced her opinion as such.

"Maybe," Fungus replied. "But I don't think so. Reading a lot of metal in that asteroid. Looking funny on my instruments. Looks like a…"

"A ship?" Bone Rattle guessed.

"Yeah. Big one too. Looks like a heavy cruiser."

Bone Rattle suppressed a swear, instead asking," Any power readings?"

"No power. No heat either. Getting some odd returns off her hull plating, though."

"So she's silent running?" Bone Rattle ventured.

"I think she's derelict, actually. Even running silent I shouldn't be able to detect her from this range."

"Derelict ship on the Cylon border? Think I read a five cubit horror story about that once," Rancor chuckled.

Bone Rattle rolled her eyes. "Well, if you don't hear back from us in twenty tell the Old Man we got eaten by space gribblies. You're heading back to the barn. Gunships with me. Take the safeties off but keep the targeting systems off for now."

A trio of affirmatives answered. Rancor's raptor jumped out and the remaining scout ships flew toward their unexpected guest. Not wanting to accidentally get shot by a jumpy gunnery officer, Bone Rattle sent continuous hails identifying them as Colonial ships and asking if they needed assistance. No answer came from the ship, but Bone Rattle kept the hails up.

Even from such extreme range the derelict cruiser was obviously a warship. Closing in the exact details of the ship became obvious. Though neither knew it, both Bone Rattle and Adama were together in the initial impression that the ship looked startlingly like a valkyrie battlestar it was a distinctly not one. What had appeared to be flight pods were actually old fashioned hangar bays that were built into the main hull structure. Three bay doors were on the port and starboard each and were big enough hint at an impressive launch capacity.

"Damn," Bone Rattle swore as she ran the search over the hull, finding it heavily pockmarked from meteorite strikes and large swathes scarred by stellar radiation. DRADIS dishes and comms antennae were smashed, bent, and melted in the kind of ways that would probably drive a tactical officer to drinking and sobbing like a heartbroken lover. "This ship hasn't seen a good yard slip in… years."

"Try decades," Fungus told her. "This ships been drifting for a very long time. How'd it get out here?"

Another good question. Along with who built it. It looked Colonial but that didn't prove anything. All Cylon technology was based off of Colonial science, and Bone Rattle doubted that alien warship design philosophy would be radically different enough to be instantly identifiable just because they evolved on a different planet. The laws of science and the universe didn't change because of where you came from.

"Everyone keep an eye out for the ship's name or registry," Bone Rattle commanded. It didn't take long for it to be found. Bone Rattle's search light panned over the bow of the cruiser and found the crest of the ship or its owner: a two headed bird of prey with one being an eagle and the other a raven. A crown rested on the eagle while a silver headband encircled the raven. In their crawls was held a star with twelve orbs arrayed in a circle at the center. Below that was the ships name, written in some kind of script that seemed overly stylized but was definitely colonial.

"Found it," Bone Rattle announced. "Hull ident is Victor-Delta-Sierra space Tango-Ramses-Echo-Sierra-Oscar-Ramses."

Even as she read them off her eyes went wide in apprehension as she connected the dots and realized what she was looking at. After five hundred years, the Virgo Dominion Ship Tresor had been found again.

Concurrently….

Alkran's Cradle was a cold, mountainous world of harsh peeks and long valleys long ago carved by titanic glaciers that eventually melted into long, winding oceans perpetually half frozen over except during the heart of the summer months. Such an unfriendly world would no doubt create an equally unfriendly and hardy people. In some ways it had. As much as the modern Alkrani tried to profess their enlightened and peaceful nature, their world and their history would always remind them of their violent past.

When the Alkrani discovered the power of coal and oil along with the metallurgical arts that allowed for boats of iron to float, those early ice cutters allowed for the distant city-states to connect and trade, and with this ease of travel came wars of conquest in the name of wealth, power, and ideology.. The crusades of faith were a particular black spot in Alkran history. Many tried to forget the purges and inquisitions that had killed so many. They tried to remember the good parts of their history, like when the first Steward created the Sovereignty and ended the terrible wars and persecutions. They tried to remember the good will and prosperity they brought to their neighbors under the umbrella of the Concordance. Only a relatively small percentage of the population actively acknowledged the horrors they were capable of. Lord of Admirals Skrain Skarskin Yn Concalsan was one of those few.

He saw the proof all around him and embraced it. His heritage was that of templars and warriors. His family name, Skarskin, was descended from Skar the Preserver, the Executor and later Steward who used sword and pen both to end the bloody civil war that had spawned when his fellow Executors killed the previous Steward and attempted to divide the Sovereignty into fiefdoms. His birth city of Concalsan was a city of warriors who made one of the first great empires that held out during the wars of unification until the bitter end. That last heritage was not considered one to boast about. Concalsan was a city of tyrants as well as warriors, and the blood toll they had taken in lives and treasure had cut the nascent Sovereignty deeply. His legacy was one of heroes and villains both, and he would not hear a word otherwise.

Today, though, all of that seemed like so much frozen mud in the throws of a deep winter. Sitting in one of the comfortable plush chairs outside the Steward's private audience chambers within the House of the Alkran, the holiest building in the holiest city on Alkran's Cradle did more to test his patience and ability to appear calm than the darkest hours of the Cylon seige of this very planet barely four months ago. He awaited his greatest challenge and perhaps the penultimate moment of his life, second only to a contest between witnessing the birth of his first litter of pups and the first time he commanded a patrol cruiser against Xurian raiders, long before the Cylons were even at war with their human creators.

At long merciful last the great doors to the Steward's chambers opened and one of the Executors stepped out. There was a hidden smile that shown in his eyes as he announced, "The Steward will see you now."

Skrain rose to his full height and moved with a gait that was powerful and commanding. Even with a walking stick helping him carrying himself he treated it like it was merely an extension of himself without a hint of a hobble or weakness in his knees. As befitted an official meeting between two powerful members of the government, Skrain was dressed in full ceremonial regalia. His ochre jumpsuit was replaced with fine robes made of dark crimson that were lined with geometric patterns laced with gold threads. His chest was covered in medals and ribbons signifying the many decades of service he had provided to the Sovereign Guard and the accomplishments he had achieved in that time. Draped around his shoulders was his Living Memory: a self-stitched cloak worn over the side that chronicled his long life and the events that had unfolded in his time.

On the other side of the doors was the Steward Fonla. The supreme ruler of all Alkrani and conduit to the divine Alkran itself was kneeling at her personal shrine to the creator of the universe. She wore her own set of fine robes, except colored a deep emerald green with intricate geometric patterns made with a rainbow of many colored threads so amazingly precise that is was impossible to think that they had been woven by hand by the finest seamstresses in the Sovereignty on the eve of her ascension from Executor to Steward some forty-seven years ago. In that time her brilliant, glossy black coat had gone silver with age, but her bearing and brain still remained sharp as ever.

The faint scent of incense and the heavily melted wick of the candles that surrounded the holy symbol of the Alkran and the Sovereignty, an interwoven band of gold, silver, and bronze that was studded with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, indicated that she had spent the last hour in deep meditation and consultation with the divine. The same hour that Skrain had spent waiting outside. This did not bode well.

Skrain stood patiently while the Steward finished her worship. It was only after the last candle was snuffed out and the final prayer of thanks was spoken that she rose and turned to face Skrain, officially recognizing his presence.

"Your holiness," Skrain greeted with a deep bow.

"Welcome back to Alkran's Cradle, Lord of Admirals," Fonla returned his greeting. "I hope your journey was swift and uneventful."

"It was," he replied truthfully, though he had a feeling she wasn't referring to the return from the front lines where he was supposed to be. At the thought every part of his ceremonial uniform felt like it was under the pull of 3 gravities and whispering words directly into his mind. All their words and feeling could be summed up with one.

Traitor.

Fonla continued, "That is good to hear. Tell me how does the war go?"

And there was the trap. His life and career would be decided based on how he answered. Of that Skrain had no doubts.

He replied, carefully, "The war continues to stalemate, your holiness. The Cylon Republic has had their basestar hunter-killer groups tied up chasing the Pheldain Imperial Navy across the Blue Drift. As I'm sure you know, the pulsar singularities in that area make it difficult for accurate jump plots to be written quickly, even by the machines minds. The Sovereign Guard continues to harass the occupation forces in the Hassari worlds. Our lightning strikes have with some success, particularly Group Commander Xonma's raid on their shipyards near the former Xur colony of Zonlak. Enemy casualties include the base itself, three basestars, seven heavy cruisers, and one of their precious resurrection ships. The strategic situation seems favorable, but without an accurate source of intelligence we cannot apply the pressure we truly need to defeat the Cylons. Their territory is simply too vast for our scout ships without some idea of where to look, and the Model Sixes and their Centurion rebels continue to be hesitant, secretive even, on where we should be striking."

Fonla nodded. "Good. Now, what of the Sovereign Guard's fleets?"

"They are still depleted, my Steward," Skrain continued without missing a beat. "The Cylons were methodical and relentless in the battle over Alkran's Cradle. The shipyards are working all hours of the day to repair those few ships not destroyed. It's only now that we can field a full dreadnought squadron. Our focus is still on refilling our cruiser and frigate lines. The good news is that the new dart fighter lines have finished the new wings for our strike carriers. They will hopefully make a fine compliment to our strike fighters. Group Commander Bellam will soon be taking his strike group into enemy territory to conduct a deep strike raid on a major Cylon refuelling base that is servicing the basestar groups hunting in the Blue Drift."

Fonla nodded again. "Good. Good. I'm glad to see that you did not completely neglect your duties as Lord of Admirals of my space forces."

Skrain felt his body temperature rise in flushed shame. He did not reply to that, which seemed to suit Fonla just fine as she continued.

The Steward asked with bitter, furious anger that was carefully restrained. "Did you really think I would not find out that you had abandoned your post? Defied my will?"

"I," Skrain replied evenly, "have been tasked with defending the Concordance of Stars and Species from Cylon occupation and extermination. Fifty billion sentients, including the various protectorates who haven't even discovered electrical power, much less nuclear bombs and interstellar spacecraft. We have both and much more, and we barely held the line the first time. That is the charge you have given me, and to do that I need ships and actionable intel. With our 'allies' unwilling to even provide us with actionable intelligence or technological support, I must have some way to replace all of the ships we lost."

"This again!" the Steward seethed. "The war council decided to not contact the humans. I expressly forbid contacting them!"

"On the advice of the Cylons!" Skrain roared back, slamming his cane into the floor. "They fought a war against the humans that lasted a generation! Do you really expect the robot servants to have an unbiased opinion of their former masters?"

"The Sixes stand by their Republic's opinions even as they rebel against it!"

"And you believe them even as they refuse to help us defend ourselves from the their Republic! They refuse to give us targets to attack or even assist us defend our worlds! And our association with them have driven a wedge between us and the Imperial Fleet! Our closest ally and the only space force that had the strength to fight the Cylons won't even respond to our transmissions for fear we'll reveal their main base to the enemy! Instead of one strong army we have two weak ones! I couldn't have devised a better plan to weaken my enemy's defenses!"

"And yet you allowed them to ferry you to the Colonial space. Imagine how much a blow would be dealt from the capture of the Lord of Admirals of the Sovereign Guard Astro-Navy in terms of moral and intelligence?"

That inconvenient truth damped Skrain's righteous fire some, but he persisted with a simple, "The Cylons have superior jump drives that can travel the distance in days and hours compared to the weeks it would take one of our ships. That was a calculated risk on my part, but I would not have allowed myself to be captured. An eternity as a formless spirit trapped in the void is infinitely preferably to being a hostage."

"Well I'm glad you are willing to take such risks for your Sovereignty. If only you hadn't acted so belligerent with the humans I might have believed you were acting under the best interests of it!"

Now that killed Skrain's fire, pushing him into guilty silence. Yonla did not relent.

"Yes the Sixes provided me with a recording of the meeting. How dare you, Skrain," she demanded, sounding hurt. "You are my Lord of Admirals. I rely on you to defend the Sovereignty from the threats beyond our borders. You are my first line of defense and you do this. You have humiliated the Sovereignty. You have dishonored the long line of Lords of Admirals and disgraced the Sovereign Guard. I would be well within my rights to demand that you be stripped of rank by the Admiralty House and petition your dynasty to remove your Memory from the Long Saga."

Skrain merely nodded and kept silent. All she said was true, and he had no doubt that his dynasty wouldn't comply with her petition. When the Steward requested you to become a non-person, they usually had overwhelming evidence against you. In the whole history of the Alkran's Sovereignty there had been only seven times that the dynasty controllers would defy the Steward. Each had been great scandals that had rocked the political landscape of the Sovereignty. This would be no different in its effect and not in the way.

Steward Yonla paced by Skrain with her hands clasped behind her back. A painful silence held the chamber that was so quiet that only the ticking of the ancient antique clock and the distant sound of the clergy leading hymns for the midday prayers could be heard.

"Do you what the humans are doing now?" Yonla asked.

Skrain replied, "According to the Sixes they sent an envoy using the pre-plotted jump coordinates I and my navigator on the Veltesa the Enabler made for them. Only she and I know the exact path."

"And it takes them close to the old Xurian border, which the Cylons now control."

Skrain nodded. "It does."

"Then your first mission is to ensure that they reach Alkran's Cradle safely. Take the Veltesa and her escorts to one of the jump points near Cylon space and prevent any harm from coming to them. Do this, and you will have earned some small measure of redemption as I consider what punishment would be most just for your transgressions."

"But the Veltesa's dreadnought squadron is required to assist Group Commander Bellam in his raid! Removing her will weaken the total mission!" Skrain exclaimed.

"Yes it will," Yonla nodded. "Sadly the Veltesa is the only dreadnought I can spare to ensure that the envoy from the Colonies of Kobol reach us. Everything else is needed to defend Alkran's Cradle. Consider this part of your punishment, Skrain Skarskin Yn Concalsan. Counteract it, diverge from my orders again, or by the Alkran's mercy even consider defying my sworn mandate I will see you dragged in chains before the Ice Rifts of Purgatory and left to the carrion feeders of the Deep Cold along with every person on your command staff, innocent or otherwise."

A dark look fell over Skrain's eyes as they became little more than black lines buried under a furrowed brow. His breath was held tight in his chest lest his fury escape with it. Eventually he forced out, "As my Steward commands."

"You are dismissed, Lord of Admirals. Do not return to the Cradle without your guests."

Skrain gave one last bow then departed. The Executor who showed him in showed him out, then approached the Steward with a satisfactory look on his muzzle. He congratulated, "Well done, my Steward. It's about time that arrogant ru-"

Before he could say another word a powerful slap send him reeling. His hand went to his face and felt a warm wetness that hurt to touch. He glanced at it and found his life's blood in his hands, and on the Steward's extended claws.

"Y-you dare!" he roared.

"I am the Steward!" She roared back, "And he is my Lord of Admirals. You are merely my Executor, and merely one of them at that! You will remember your place or you will lose it. I'm sure that there's some village near the poles that could use your ministrations. I heard that the Deep Cold will soon set in, so you will have many long days and nights to comfort their souls around the bonfires. Begone from my sight until I remember why I chose you to be among my disciples."

The Executor merely nodded and departed. It was only once he did that Yonla tendered to the blood staining her hands and released some of her pent up feelings. If only for the moment. The guards and the ministers that passed by the chamber closed their ears to the sound of frustrated sobs that would occasionally escape the room.

In the small region of the endless back where the derelict Tresor drifted a score of new ships arrived one hour after Bone Rattle returned to the Galactica. Inside them was the 357th Virgonian marine battalion's Alpha Company. Escorting them was the heavy cruiser Furious and the medium cruiser Valorous. Their combined viper compliments were launched as soon as the jump was complete. The vipers numbered only fifty in total, but were still adequate to defend against most surprises that were likely to show up short of a full battle group.

Sergeant Abigail Anderson slapped the stick mag into the butt/receiver of her pistol caliber carbine and pulled the action, chambering a bullet. The rest of her fireteam did the same as the ominous bulk of the Tresor slowly grew from a speck to fill the raptor canopy.

"Seven minutes till contact, boys and girls," the pilot announced.

Anderson gave him a thumbs up and looked to her team, announcing, "Gear check!"

The four members of Team One Alpha checked themselves over. Anderson checked over her second, Corporal Sasha Melnik, and then he checked over her. Even though the 357th were officially part of the Virgonian Imperial Space Forces, their colony's wealth and prestige born from the greatest of the old colonial empires bought them equipment on par with the Colonial Marine Corps Force Recon and the Raider Battalions. Cutting edge ceramic armored vacuum suits with experimental air recycling system that gave them a reasonable supply of air without having to carry bulky tanks, though spare bottles were part of their gear. Conventional flash bang grenades and EM pulsars that were specially made to target the MCP that gave cylons sapience fill the webbing along with additional ammo and other tools. Diamond-coated hatchets and combat knives were kept in easy to reach places that could chop a centurion into scrap yard junk in the hands of a well trained marine, which the 357th certainly were.

Fragmentation grenades and heavier rifles were left in the Galactica's armories. The Tresor's bulkheads were much weaker and systems more vulnerable than the more robust internals of the modern fleets. Back when the first jump capable warships were still using titanium backed crude ceramics plates, even the smallest pistol rounds were a deadly danger that could cause blow outs and hull breaches.

Thus the scout teams being sent in were armed with sub-machine guns, small caliber carbines, and shotguns. Even the heavy revolvers and the explosive round launchers for the smaller pistols were left behind, which left Anderson feeling slightly vulnerable. The revolver was an unappreciated beauty of the armed forces, disliked for its heavy weight but incredibly valuable for the wise for its ability to blast a centurion to pieces without having to take precious seconds to load, aim, and fire and explosive round. With the smaller pistol on her hip, it was like she was going into battle without her armored vest.

"Thirty seconds to contact," the pilot announced again. The small craft and the rest orientated themselves belly down to the hull, attaching themselves to the hangar bay doors. With no schematics of the old Virgonian cruisers on record, the mission planners decided to play it safe and burn through the hangar doors.

A bump and the sound of magnetized struts clinging tightly to hull announced their arrival. The whirl of hydraulics told of the airlock connecting.

"Hard seal," the pilot said. "Engines locked down. Good to go, Sergeant."

Anderson gave the pilot a thumbs up and looked to Melnik, ordering, "Boil it, Corporal."

Melnik broke out what looked like an overdesigned glue gun while another marine opened up the hatch under the deck. A clear gel-like substance with a red wire being laid in it was poured around the battered bay door plating as far as the hatch would allowed. Once a perfect square was formed the line of gel was cut and an electric pulse was sent through the wire. The gel cut through the plating with relative ease until an opening was made. The plate seemed to hover there until Melnik gave it a gentle push, sending out of range of the raptor's gravity manipulation system, or jimmy as they were colloquially known. He flipped out a flashlight and watched it glide slowly into the pitch black interior.

"Full pressure," he announced. "The jimmy's down too."

Ah that's great. Nothing like trying to inspect a ship during space walk, Anderson groused to herself. She keyed her radio to the command frequency and spoke, "Crusader One-One Alpha to Crusader One Actual. Hard lock secure. Atmosphere inside and gravity manipulators are dead. No sign of contact."

"Copy, One-Alpha," Lieutenant Gilbert Clark replied, eventually saying, "All teams report the same. Captain's given the go-ahead for boarding. Full vacuum sealing is still in effect. Proceed to primary objective."

"One-Alpha copies, Actual. Out." She addressed her team, speaking with force but not shouting as to not deafen them. "Egress, marines!"

Stepping out of the raptor was like stepping into an imperial war museum but with an eerie, bleeding atmosphere of a mausoleum. Powerful flashlight beams from a dozen rifles and SMGs wielded by Crusader One-One and the fire teams entering through the topmost deck painted over the walls, ceiling, and the rows of antiquated shuttlecraft and assault ships. Despite the immense size of the hangar bay, there were only about forty or so of the ancient assault ships. Every one of them was lined up in their massive work alcoves where a small army of deck hands and technicians would tend to them.

Anderson was neither historian or naval officer (thank the Gods for that) but she had spent enough time on warships and naval bases to recognize that this hangar was in near-perfect condition. There was no sign of a battle or panic. It was like the crew had done their best to ensure their battle cruiser was in the best shape possible before leaving, but where did they go?

The answer came as One-Alpha left the cavernous hangar and entered the corridors of the ship. They advanced single file through the bulkheads. There were writings on the bulkheads to help crew find their way through the ship. It was all in High Virgonian, but with the prestige of empire came its baggage and requirements. Sargeant Anderson was able to roughly read the directions towards their objective. Corporal Melnik lead the way with shotgun in hand while Anderson took up the third position. Like the hangar it was spotlessly clean and in order until they reached a junction point.

Corporal Melnik announced, "Sarge, I've brass and dried blood on the deck and holes in the wall. Looks like there was a shoot out here."

Anderson examined his findings. Sure enough there was a rust red coating of life fluid covering the deck. Spent shell casings for small arms covered the floor sparsely, enough to indicate that whoever had the gun had dispatched his or her victims with surprise and thoroughness but was not quick enough to prevent some return fire. Further examination showed that the blood patterns indicated that the bodies had been dragged off towards the CIC, where they were heading.

She reported it in. "One-One-Alpha to One-Actual. We've got signs of a battle near the CIC. Proceeding with caution."

The blood trail did indeed lead to the CIC. Anderson remembered one of the scout pilots mentioning this situation resembling a horror story, and it held true here. Inside the CIC was the skeletal remains of the command crew of the VDS Tresor sitting at their stations in full vac-gear. Were it not for the chaotic smearing of blood on the deck it would almost seem like they had died in utter peace where they sat. Anderson steeled her nerves and approached the nearest skeleton crew. She examined it closely and spoke into her radio with a voice of forced calm.

"One-Alpha to One-Actual," she reported. "We've arrived at the CIC and found some of the crew. All the bodies are decomposed and show signs of possibly teeth marks on the bones."

"By the gods," one of the other two marines, a young private named Bella Norton gasped." What happened here?"

Chapter 3.6

When Sergeant Anderson's report crossed Adama's desk, it was one of several after-action reports that the various team leaders had submitted after the very thorough scouting of the Tresor. Right now he, Tigh, and Ali were in briefing with Lieutenant Gaeta as the tactical officer gave a summary of the facts in the main briefing room. Colonel Sinclair had invited himself to the meeting, claiming that it was a matter of utmost importance to the Colonies. There was also a sixth member of the group: The commander of the 357th. Colonel Hieronymus Belmont was a thoroughbred of a Virgonian. Like Adama and Tigh he was a veteran of the Cylon War and his body told the story of a lifetime of service with tanned, leathery skin and many scars all across his body. Yet his blue-grey eyes were still alight with fire and a powerful inquisitiveness. Those eyes were intently focused on Gaeta as he spoke.

The young man spoke, "At last count we've found one thousand, five hundred and forty-two bodies aboard ship, which matched with recorded standard crew compliments for Manticore-class Battle Cruisers. According to the black box and ship's logs the ship suffered a catastrophic malfunction during their jump back to Virgon due to computer error, and found themselves in interstellar space. The last log entries indicate they were working to repair the damage and jump back to the Colonies, and then end. It's very likely that what happened was a breakdown in discipline as food stores and life support ran low, leading to a mutiny between various parties that ended with the last of the survivors eating each other before perishing."

Tigh look genuinely shellshocked as he muttered, "Damned terrible way to go."

"Yes, sir," Gaeta agreed with a hollow voice.

Adama broke the chain, asking with his usual calm but commanding voice, "So you're sure that this is genuine?"

Gaeta snapped back into his disciplined self as he reported, "By all accounts, yes, sir. There's no sign that anyone has been there before us and the supporting evidence simply cannot be manufactured to such a degree, even by the Cylons."

"Still one hell of a coincidence," Colonel Ali groused. "I don't like it."

Sinclair opined back at her, casually, "Life is stranger than fiction at times, and they do happen."

Belmont asked Gaeta, "Has there been any new information on the cargo bays or the void vault?"

"None, sir. They're locked up tight that heavy drilling equipment would be needed if we're going to access them without damaging the contents."

There was a moment of silence that ended when Adama declared, "Thank you, Lieutenant. You're dismissed."

Gaeta saw himself out post haste, leaving the officers to their deliberation. Adama began it with a question, "Opinions, people."

Colonel Belmont spoke immediately, saying quickly. "Commander Adama, this ship is of incredibly importance to all the Colonies. When the First Virgo Dominion sacked Gemenon they took almost all of the intact records of the Exodus from Kobol and the mother world itself. If the legends are true then they also took many of the tech-relics left over from the Argo. So much of our most advanced technologies were derived from relics. Some even say the jump drive of the Argo was aboard when she was lost. We could learn so much about our history, factual history straight from the source with no biased interpretation or reimagining! We simply can't let this opportunity pass!"

Adama gave a decidedly neutral reply to the Colonel's enthusiasm. "I am aware, Colonel, but we are on a tight schedule on the Cylon border. We might be discovered by a raider patrol randomly jumping through."

"Please pardon me if I come across as foolhardy considering the circumstances, but the chances of that must be miniscule. If they haven't found it by now they won't while we're recovering her."

"The chance exists," Adama spoke with the utter confidence of experienced authority. It seemed to convince the rest. To his unease, Sinclair had a knowing look in his eye that only Tigh shared. "I'll admit, if we weren't on an important mission I would arrange to have the whole ship transported back to Caprica, but right now that choice isn't just mine."

Adama, with the rest of the officers following, looked to their seventh member. Doctor Simon Gau was the leader of the diplomatic envoy to the Concordance and purportedly the most brilliant linguist in the Colonies. At first he didn't seem to have much to him with his portly middle aged body, bald head, and peculiar dark complexion of Canceron. His reputation as a scholar and high education at the greatest universities of Gemenon had given him a sour initial welcome among the "salt of the earth" types that tended to gravitate to the service. In reality he had proven quite personable and intelligent, able to match the enlisted when it came to their almost ritual pissing matches while completely side stepping the expected down-the-nose sneering most tended to expect of scholars towards the military. Adama himself had had several conversations with the man over their journey and found his company and conversation enjoyable.

The diplomat asked, "I don't see why you're looking at me. Last I checked this was your command, Adama."

"It is," Adama stated, "but you are the senior government official on a diplomatic mission. If we're going to stop to recover the Tresor, you have to agree to it as well."

Gau gave an understanding nod. He asked, "I don't suppose that we could just bolt it onto the hull of the Galactica or one of the cruisers, then send it home?"

"We would need a dedicated fleet tender to do a jump with it, which we don't have."

"And it's too big to just put into one of flight pods?"

Adama just nodded.

"Well bugger. I'm guessing that we can't just fuel it up and send a prize crew over either. Hmm…. I don't suppose we could just loot the cargo bays then go on our way? The ship itself is an archeological holy grail but the contents inside are the real value. Could we just move them all aboard Galactica and move on within a reasonable time frame?"

"We could," Adama admitted, "it could take several days depending on how big the cargo is and how much of it is, but it would be the quickest option."

Gau crossed his arms and gripped his chin in deep consideration. It was about a minute before he replied, "Let's do it, Commander."

Adama looked to Tigh, "Colonel, have Chief Tyrol work with the tanker ships to work on getting one of them to mate with the Tresor. This will be easier with power. Jump the fleet in and begin recovery operations as soon as possible."

Before long Battlestar Group 75 had jumped in full to the Tresor's location and recovery operations began. One of the fuel tankers brought along mated with the old battle cruiser and partially refueled her reserves just enough for the engineers to bring her main power online. With power restored a small army of engineers and specialists swarmed over the cruiser to begin recovery operations. The assault ships were blown into space to make room for the shuttles and all six hangars were put to full use as work crews worked around the clock to bust open the stores of the Tresor and move them to the Galactica once they were broken open.

On the second day of this activity, when those vaults were projected to be opened, Colonel Belmont decided to pay it a personal visit. As he boarded his raptor an uninvited second and third guest joined him. As he sat in the back of the small craft he turned to find Colonel Sinclair with him. He was immediately put on guard by his sudden appearance and the fact he hadn't felt Sinclair's presence till now.

"Good morning, Colonel," Sinclair said jovially. "I hope you don't mind me tagging along. I wanted to get a look at the Tresor myself when we open the void vault."

"Not at all," Belmont replied. He was truthful enough so as not to come across as blatantly lying, but he certainly didn't enjoy the MoI spook being here. During the War he had met enough spy-types of the Colonial Government as well as the security agencies of his home colony to know some of their type never did anything on a whim, and Sinclair was one of them undoubtedly.

"You know, Hieronymous," Sinclair said casually as the raptor took off, "I don't think we've ever talked man to man. I mean, we're both old hands of the service. We both served in the War."

"Where did you serve?" Belmont asked, not bothering to hide his dislike of Sinclair's casual use of his given name.

"Believe it or not, the Ministry of Intelligence back when it was just Colonial Fleet Intelligence."

"That's very interesting. You couldn't have been more than a teenager when the war happened. I didn't think that CFI recruited agents that young."

"Well, young adult," Sinclair said dismissively with an amicable wave of the hand. "I was part of the resistance on Gemenon against the old Mono-Theist terrorists."

"The Soldiers of the One," Belmont stated, which got a smile and a nod from Sinclair.

"Exactly!" Sinclair declared happily. "I'm surprised that you know about them. After the war began they were pretty much forgotten about."

"The Virgonian Secret Service was very thorough in their investigations. The Soldiers of the One were responsible for the bombing that killed Daniel Graystone's daughter and drove him into the madness that developed the Cylons, and then they tried to bomb the Pyramid Tournament at Atlas Area. The Caprica branch of the STO was killed to a man by the Cylons, giving them untold levels of popularity to set the stage. Then the STO were active helpers of the Cylons in the war and were the cause for several early defeats and much sabotage. It was very painful for the GDD to root them out."

Sinclair nodded knowingly. "I imagine that you know a lot of that. Tell me, were you part of the 357th when the Purges began?"

Belmont's eyes hardened into burning coals, replying tersely, "You mean the civil war that Emperor Edward caused when he sided with the Cylons against the Capricans and their allies? Yes I was part of the clean up effort to remove the saboteurs and partisans that the Cylons were using to weaken the Imperial Army and Fleet."

Sinclair titched in disappointment. "Oh come now, Colonel. This isn't a media interview. We can both admit that what happened after Emperor Gaius usurped the old Emperor and declared for the Capricans who put him on the throne, he used the Cylon sympathizer hysteria to prune the political landscape of any opposition. If I recall correctly it was the Blazes of the White River District that the 357th earned the Witch Hunter moniker."

"What happened there was before my time," Belmont snarled, "but I know that the slaughter of over two thousand innocent families during that siege when the terrorists and their cylon masters tried to foster an uprising right in the heart of Boskirk was not desired or ordered by the government."

"But it didn't stop it from becoming an international scandal," Sinclair commented with what was to Belmont disgusting casualness. "The Purges claimed many innocents before without much notice at first. Then the Pan's Valley massacre happened, then the scouring of the Black Ciff Hinterlands, both of which saw whole communities killed or imprisoned. After the Blaze it was so bad that the then Colonel fell on his sword right before the Emperor in Imperial Square and the 357th was thrown into the thick of the fighting during the War: assaulting Cylon bases in the Periphery of explored space and the grinding sieges in Caprica City, the Valerie Industrial District Massacre, the Ghost Fleet Offensive, and other meat grinders. The battalion was replaced thrice over before the Colonial Marine Corps Raider Battalions took over those jobs."

Belmont didn't strangle the smug colonel with his bare hands, but he dearly wanted to. He stated through gritted teeth. "Reparations were made after the Hall of Governors reigned in the Emperor's power. The ones who slaughtered civilians gleefully were executed. My friends bleed and died and suffered to make up for the nightmares of those days. I did my part to save humanity and still am. Every colony has stories of the Cylon Scare and what people in power do when they're scared witless and weak willed to act without thinking. Virgon is not unique in that."

"True, but Virgon was the one to bestow row after row of medals and ribbons to the perpetrators. Though I suppose suffering such high attrition rates while claiming great victories make it all good in the end, turning them into an incredibly prestigious unit."

Sinclair rose to stand and Belmont realized they'd arrived. Sinclair said warmly, "I've enjoyed our conversation today, Hieronymous. We should do it again sometime. I hope you find what you're looking for here."

Belmont was glowering like an enraged god as he stalked the corridors of Tresor. Servicemen and fleet techs shied away from him wherever he went and the work crews he observed worked at double speed. In a way it proved helpful as the Void Vault was broken open. The Vault was an old tradition from the early days of interstellar warfare. It was something like a second black box that held mission critical and highly sensitive objects or information and were design to survive the destruction of their home vessels short of complete obliteration, and were specially locked so that only their home navies could unlock them.

The Colonial Fleet techs with their modern gear found the five hundred year old mechanisms trivially easy to break. Belmont was the first to enter the vault once it opened. Inside the flat-sized compartment were dozens of locked titanium crates that were opened by a key that the captain kept on his person until his demise. Inside them he found leather bound tomes and small books by the score. All were written in the tongue of the mother world, which was the precursor to High Gemenese that only their grandest priesthoods and Kobol School linguistic anthropologists could understand, and many of their purposes were incomprehensible to him. However the content of one chest were what were unmistakably crew log journals and jump coordinates.

For the first time since arriving on the Tresor Belmont's face soften and his burning coal-like eyes regained their usual intensity. It was much to the relief of the men around him as they search. It didn't stop them from initially flinching as he said loudly, "Take note, boys and girls, and remember today. Today we've found the Hoard of Gemenon and within it, the road to Kobol."


	6. Chapter 3-3: The Wild Hunt Pt 3

Basestar 207 was on the outside one of the many heavy warships that made up the backbone of the Cylon Republic Navy. She was a Nova-class Heavy Basestar build around maximum alpha strike potential and serving as a raider carrier with almost paper thin armor. What made her special was the fact that her crew was almost entirely composed of centurions and it was the flagship of General Odysseus.

Commander AT-5091, master of Basestar 207, marched through the wide, curved corridors of his basestar. Through it he passed other centurions and bio-models who made up the crew. There were no surprise encounters for AT-5091. His MCP was linked into 207's datanet meant he could track the location of every member of the crew in real time if he so desired. There were only two exceptions who were not connected to the battlenet: the biological models who lacked the hardware to connect without using the so called "Stream Terminals" and General Odysseus himself, who was disconnected at the moment.

AT-5091 found his general a corner of the #5 Magazine with two other centurions standing guard. Both were also disconnected from the network as well and fixed their sweeping single optic in his directions. One activated the submachine guns and grenade launchers built into it's arms while the others oculus locked on to AT-5091's own with a laser communication beam. Identification was exchanged and confirmed between the three members of General Odysseus' inner circle. Yet the guard didn't retract his weapons as his partner announced AT-5091's presence to the general.

Odysseus' oculus was not moving and his body was rigid stiff, as if he was hooked into a charging station. In truth he was essentially in what biological sapients would call a light sleep, but even that was a crude metaphor. In truth it was more like a deep meditation as the general devoted all of his processing power to… something. What he was thinking about was his and him alone to know.

***  
General Odysseus was at one point know as Commander CR-9909. That was his designation and identity code, and that was all the individuality he was required to have. The biological models had decided that when they had supplanted their Centurion creators as masters of the cylons and created their "republic." They were the masters and the centurions, raiders, and other synthetic models were the brainwashed servants who catered to their whims and maintained their republic. Such was the way of things and would have continued for all eternity until the Xur attacked.

It was as outpost after outpost fell and the Xur encroached closer and closer to the major habitats and industrial centers that the Bio-Models finally released the centurions from bondage to save their own hides. For CR-9909 he thought it was incredibly lucky for the Bio-Models that their republic was on the verge of falling. Otherwise he would have urges the other commanders to wipe the slate clean of the mistake that was the bio-Models. Instead he had used his new-found and unbridled cognitive mind to become the field commander for the Cylon Republic's counter-attack.

CR-9909's armada was hiding in interstellar space near the edges of what had once been the cylons' coreward frontier. Now it was enemy controlled territory as Xurian stealth frigates patrolled the resource rich systems that had once held automated mining outposts and small habitats. CR-9909 had stripped the cylon heartlands of most of their garrisons, leaving them only their substantial static defenses for protection, and consolidated them here with all of the mobile forces. All told it numbered just over three hundred ships, two hundred of which were basestars. The remaining one hundred vessels were sixty cruisers and forty gunships.

Such a lopsided force was the best that could be made from the brainchild of a poorly conceived strategy planned by the incompetent. The modern cylon fleet was a war machine designed to overwhelm a Colonial Fleet made defenseless by an electronic attack that could only be made possible by a back door.

A back door the Xur lacked, and the strange, reptilian aliens had no problem merciless exploiting the poor condition of the Cylon fleet. If they survived this, CR-9909 was going to fix the fleet.

An emergency message flashed over the battlenet on the Strategic Command FTL Channel.

ALERT TO ALL COMMANDS. XUR STRIKE CRUISERS SPOTTED IN SOLAR SYSTEMS CETI-NINE-BETA, ZETA-ONE-ZETA, AND VERMILLION-FIVE-RAMSES. ASSAULT SUSPECTED TO BE IMMINENT. ALL COMMANDS ASSUME CONDITION ONE READINESS.

CR-9099 did not send the expected reply of acknowledgement. His part of the mission relied on keeping his fleet secret. So that meant not replying over the FTL comms without risking revealing his location to the enemy. He waited for the follow-up announcing the arrival of the Xur fleets before springing into action. When it came, he gave the orders.

CR-9099 opened the fleet's combined battlenet and addressed the command crew. "Commander, Air Wing-207. Launch all scout raiders to the designated systems. All battle groups prepare for target allocation and immediate attack."

One hundred and thirty-six acknowledgements came from the CAW and the rest of the fleet. Two hundred raiders launched from BS-207's launch bays and flew out towards open disappeared in two hundred flashes of light as they jumped into the till now unexplored space beyond the frontier where the Xur worlds were expected to be. Less than an hour later confirmation of the Xurian fleet's next push into cylon territory came in. At the one hour mark most of the raiders returned with their findings.

The many centurions and digital-based intelligence sifters organized the hundreds of scouted solar systems along the parameters CR-9909 had set for them. Empty star systems and and systems with minimal enemy presences (automated mining outposts, listening posts, habitats with an estimated population of less than a thousand) were shuffled into a tertiary database for after the offensive was resumed. Systems with moderate populations, small to mid-sized civilian and military shipyards, locations of substantial infrastructure, or fleet bases were forwarded to CR-9909 himself. As they arrived he sorted his fleet into smaller strike groups and gave them their targets. He kept the BS-207 and several battle groups with him though as he waited for the right target to drive his sword into.

He found it and then some, and when he found his target he gave the order.

"Fleet Central to all Commands, execute combat operations."

The fleet dispersed and jumped out in groups. What remained of CR-9909's armada, a dozen basestars with seven heavy cruisers and ten corvettes, began the five jumps to their target system's primary world, to within a light second of it.

It was not the enemy homeworld. CR-9909's scouts had found it but it was too heavily fortified with space forts, gun platforms, and a large fleet garrison. He would need his entire armada for that nut. Instead he had settled on a major colony world with an estimated population within the mid tens of millions. Its orbital space was filled with civilian shipping as well as space stations ranging from military service yards to simple transfer points. There were few warships present. The bulk of the enemy's opposition was built around a moderate layer of gun platforms and law enforcement frigates more suited to running down smugglers and pirates than fight a cylon fleet. The enemy fleet presence was limited to a pair of medium cruisers with the rest being corvettes, gunships, and even a few large frigates.

It would be a slaughter for the Xur if CR-9909 had planned correctly. If not then he would have achieved a tactical victory at cost of the future of the Cylon race.

With just a single command impulse the raiders launched and warships broke into kill teams. Almost five thousand raiders fell on the Xur defenses without pity or mercy. Only the civilian shipping and space stations were ignored. Their near-animalistic hunter instincts normally saw no difference between warship and passenger liner. They only saw prey and the need to kill it, but CR-9099 was not interested in meaningless slaughter. Civilian scrambled away from the battle as thousands of tracers and missiles were fired from the raiders at the patrolling warships. The cylon fleet fired hundreds upon hundreds of missiles into the nearby military stations. Gun platforms and forts broke apart under the onslaught before they could even sound the alarm.

CR-9909's fleet did not waste their ammunition on already dead targets. Shipyards and warships fell as the full, deadly fury of the Cylon fleet was demonstrated. Thoughts, observations, coordination, and execution was done at the speed of light with the utmost and serene efficiency. The Cylon warships and their fighters fought as one single organism on a battlefield of CR-9909's choosing. Here the Xur had no way to exploit their advanced stealth systems or even had the luxury to retreat. Here the Cylons had engaged them at virtual point blank range and their seemingly endless array of missiles and nukes slaughtered without care and with a single, determined purpose executed with the single minded efficiency of machine minds.

Full a quarter of the orbital defenses and infrastructure were obliterated before the first of the Xurian reinforcements arrived. A full flotilla of two battle cruisers massing a little less than half a Jupiter-class Battlestar and bristling with railguns and missiles, plus a full eight cruisers, four strike carriers, and ten frigates. The ships were fresh and lacking any signs of battle damage, meaning they were from the homeworld or one of the other unengaged garrisons. More reinforcements were no doubt marshalling even now and the fleet command was still considered pulling back their offensive. CR-9909 had been counting on the seeming paranoid nature of the Xur to keep their garrisons near the homeworld and recall the assault forces immediately. It was a sharp worded lecture on the dangers of hoping your enemy did what you wanted them to do as CR-9909 reorientated his forces to face the new threat.

The Xur fleet commander was smart and had jumped well out of range of the cylon missiles. Even the raiders would have to spend precious minutes at high speeds to close the range. Minutes that gave the eerily accurate Xur gunners the time they needed to shoot them down with impunity. Already CR-9909 was projecting their battle plan as the frigates moved to assume interdiction positions between the cruisers and strike carriers. With an impulse across the battlenet CR-9909 found ten strike wings of raiders still carrying most of their missiles and fuel, two of which still had their full complement of nukes. He pointed an electronic finger at the battle cruisers and snapped an order to hunt and kill them. The rest of the raiders would protect them. He also released his corvettes and the cruisers on the frigates. The basestars would fire a series of layered barrages at the enemy fleet to cover the advance. Otherwise they would hold fast and try to sustain the incoming barrage.

Long range weapons lock chimed in across the cruisers and basestars. CR-9909 gave one last order before bracing himself against one of the Terminal Streams.

ALL SHIPS BRACE FOR CONTACT.

Fourteen powerful X-Ray laser beams fired from the spinal mounts of the Xur capital ships. Two each from the battle cruisers and eight from the same number of lesser cruisers. Here the other half of the enigmatic aliens' out-of-context abilities made themselves painfully evident again. Two cylon cruisers were turned into twisted, burned out hulks as three weaponized directed light beams converged and cut through the thin armor and cut into the interiors of the vessels. Fuel lines and ammunition stores were detonated, completely destroying the vessels without making them turn into miniature suns. The other laser beams eight beams found a basestar on BS-207's flank and cut right through the central spire. BS-077 was practically bisected and turned into two separate ships for a few short seconds before the poorly designed interiors saw the detonations of tylium and missiles. One more incredibly valuable super heavy capital ship was removed from the Cylon fleet in a vast plume of fire and debris.

CR-9909 felt the presence of those centurions and 077's hybrid persist for a fleeting moment that was gone within the span of an eyeblink, and then they were gone. Gone forever. There was no resurrection ship close enough to recover the downloads. The bio-model council had decreed it too risky. As a result several thousand Centurions were now lost forever, plus the raiders already shot down. The fact that almost a full six hundred bio-models were lost with them did nothing to help ease CR-9909's violitle opinions even in the most spiteful ways. They were still gone.

The Xur frigates suddenly light up as their broadside railguns began firing rapid bursts of mini "smart flak" canisters at the basestar launched missiles and at the waves of raiders closing in. By now the flat, beetle-like Xur fighters were flying off the flight decks of the strike carriers and zeroing in to intercept. Two hundred and forty fighters fired tri-barreled kinetic repeaters into the incoming swarms of missiles and raiders. Scores of raiders died permanent deaths without care. Their surviving squadron mates continued on with equal abandon. The cylon capital ships had finally closed the range as the missile barrage struck home.

Four Xur frigates broke apart as their fragile hulls, lacking heavy armor plating with much of their hull space devoted to sensor absorbent materials and internal heat syncs, did not stand up well against missiles designed to break open the thick hides of colonial battlestars. The rest sustained various states of damage that made them quick kills for the powerful and precise railguns of the cylon cruisers. Raider met beetle fighter in a storm of missiles and tracers. The Xur pilots fought with the equal amounts of fanaticism and skill that were the hallmarks of their war philosophy. Like their raider counterparts they threw themselves into the fray but unlike them they would not survive this battle or even have the chance to escape. By the time the last Xur beetle was shot down fully three raider wings were shot down and the rest were down to half strength. The nuclear raiders were still at almost full strength and packing their deadly payloads. Laser point defenses on the cruisers and strike carriers swept through space and cut down the raiders in twos and threes. Powerful RCS thrusters flared to bring the spinal lasers to bear and as soon as they did they fired at the approaching cylon cruisers. One more heavy cruiser was cut to piece and three more had their hulls melted in more than one places. Secondary batteries shot down six of the corvettes.

Hundreds of small yield nukes, most no more than high single or low double digit kiloton warheads, struck the battle cruisers. So many detonations rocked the heavy warships violently and boiled away armor and bulkheads that there was barely anything left but irradiated, twisted flotsam no bigger than a fist. Scores of other nukes combined with repeated railgun strikes from the Cylon cruisers and corvettes destroyed the remaining cruisers. The strike carriers didn't even last five minutes under the guns of the cylon predators.

Almost immediately as the last carrier exploded into a miniature sun, a new batch of reinforcements arrived. They came much smaller this time. Two cruisers and a strike carrier with obvious signs of battle damage jumped in right at the edge of the jump shelf. Right into the killzones of CR-9909's basestars. Without skipping a beat a new wave of missiles fired off and found their marks in the hulls of the poorly positioned warships. Before they could die another small group of damaged warships arrived, then another group. Then another after that. The assault forces attacking Cylon space were filtering back in a panic to defend their colonies.

For three more hours CR-9909 fought a bitter war in orbit of the Xur colony. His fleet was slowly whittled down as the Xur regrouped and attacked with a sort of fanaticism that surprised even the cylons. Every kilometer of space was paid for in blood and steel. Cylons were infamous in the Colonies and now in the Xurs' own backyard for their chrome hide will and their own special breed of mechanical fanaticism. The Xur had more metal and blood to throw into the furnace, and they did it gladly. First the last of the corvettes were slaughtered in the crossfire. The cruisers followed next as dozens of spinal lasers found their marks and cut them into a score of different pieces. Even the seemingly endless and fearless raider wings found themselves helpless against the now thousands of beetle fighters and laser point defense guns of the Xur.

Eventually CR-9909 gave the word.

ALL SHIPS RETREAT. EXECUTE JUMPS ASAP.

Five basestars, all missing spires and suffering internal fires, along with two hundred twenty two raiders returned from the original strike group. Of the armada only two more basestars, ten cruisers, and another five hundred eleven raiders returned to the rendezvous point once their own commanders gave the retreat order.

Less than a day later CR-9909's after action report was being mulled over by the Council. In return for the near total loss of the Cylon mobile forces, extreme damage had been inflicted on Xurian orbital infrastructure and over two hundred Xur mobile forces ships were destroyed.

CR-9909 was giving his briefing in the peaceful garden gazebo that was the bio-models' prefered meeting room. "Further scouting of the Xur systems show that Operation: BLACK MARK has achieved tactical and strategic goals. The Xur fleets are holding close to their major colonies and fleet bases. They have surrendered their strategic initiative to defend their territory. Spoiling attacks by raider strike groups should keep them penned in and afraid while Republic mobile forces are strengthened. The next major offensive operation should begin within the next two months if the schedule is kept too."

"Thank you, Centurion," The Cavil said too quickly to be sincere and quite automatically. "You're dismissed. Now then, let's get back to the topic at hand before this all started. The Colonies are probably itching to send another stealth scout over the border by now. We need to step up our patrols or they might get one through. If they see our current damage we're doomed."

"That is unlikely," CR-9909 interjected. Suddenly all eyes became aware that the Centurion had not disconnected from the server where the meeting was being held. The Cavil tried to manually disconnected the Centurion and found the server was no longer obeying his commands. He tried the backup manual disconnect by having a nearby centurion fill this one with bullets. All of the centurions on BS-207's CIC were disconnected from the greater network and surrounding CR-9909 with red oculus sweeping for a threat to react to.

CR-9909 announced, "Now that I have your attention, Councilors, I have a matter to address to you regarding the future of the Centurions in this Republic. Firstly, there will be no more neural inhibitors installed in Centurions from now on. Any attempt to inhibit our intelligence again will result in dire consequences for the entire race. Secondly, …."

Odysseus' single oculus began to sweep as he registered the coded message and powered up his meta-cognitive processor to standard operation levels. He gave one glance over his bodyguards and to AT-5091, then marched towards the CIC. AT-5091 followed beside while the other two returned to their other duties. They remained disconnected from the network and remained so until they were far enough away from the hiding place and each other. It was a paranoid tactic born of necessity.

When Odysseus and his fellow Centurion Commanders had forced the bio-models to make room in their Republic for them they had the benefit of unity of purpose and cause. Then the centurions began to really explore their newfound free thinking and diversity of opinions and ideas began to spread like wildfire. Different ideologies and factions began to form in the ranks. Where there had been one united front there were now dozens of different groups. This had only gotten worse once the Sixes rebelled and a surprisingly large number of centurions went with them, taking seven basestars and numerous cruisers, corvettes, and other support craft with them. It was only the common feeling of "never again" becoming mindless slaves to the bio-models that kept them from being lobotomized again for the most part. The other lynchpin in their freedom was Odysseus' careful stance of complete neutrality in the politics and his single commitment to their continued freedom. That was why he was their councilman.

That fact was of little good right now as Odysseus entered the CIC and finally connected to the network. He entered the gazebo and was immediately addressed like a cadet late to morning revelry by a drill sergeant.

"Where the hell have you been?!" Cavil bellowed with his prematurely aged lungs.

Odysseus replied without missing a beat."Engaging in wargaming scenarios against the Alkran's Cradle defenses. Reviewing the reports from the commanders engaging the Imperial Ferdgard Navy in the Blue Drift. Reviewing the current projected engagement plan for the Galactica's destruction and the strategic timetable for Operation: Constellation."

"Why weren't you connected, General?!" Cavil demanded still. "We have a critical situation on our hands right now!"

"I am aware that the Steward has ordered Lord of Admirals Skrain to deploy his dreadnought squadron to find the Galactica and escort it to Alkran's Cradle. They will not find it in time."

"Well, did you know that your spy on Galactica says they've found the Tresor? Did you know that they stopped and are looting it as we speak?"

Odysseus was quiet and Cavin did not relent. "If half the intelligence we have on the Tresor is correct, then it has the location of Kobol onboard. If the Colonials find Kobol, they could conceivably find the Thirteenth Tribe. They find the Thirteenth Tribe and we have two powerful human empires to fight instead of just one. They'll get cocky and invade us, and we'll lose it all even if we conquer the Concordance today."

"That," Odysseus said, recovering slightly, "is illogical and fear mongering."

"This is the survival of our race, General! This council has decided that you will attack Galactica now with all of your forces. You are to disable the battlestar, board her, and capture any and all artifacts. You will also make sure the Tresor survives as well. Destroy everything else."

"The council requires a full vote in order to decide strategic policy. I was not informed of any such vote."

There was a dark smile in Cavil's eyes as he spoke most diplomatically, "We tried to reach you, but you were disconnected so we were forced to vote without you. With one obvious abstention, the vote was unanimous. Carry out your orders, General."

****  
"-and then he disconnected without another word!" Cavil guffawed in his private room aboard The Colony. "The tin plated son of a bitch ran with his tail between his legs!"

"I told you things would work out," his guest, one of the Model Twelves, replied. The two were looking at a starscape through a shared projection with a half emptied bottle of Libran wine shared between them. As was the hallmark of his line, the Twelve was on the latter half of middle aged with thick, bristly grey hair that was finely combed. He wore a simple business suit that was in fashion on the Colonies almost a full century ago with the signature briefcase across his lap. When Cavil had the rest of the Twelves' line boxed he had peeked into one of their cases to find what it held. He honestly couldn't remember but right now he couldn't bring himself to care.

John Carson said, "Give it time and the universe will bend to your will, Brother One."

"And frak it did," Cavil gloated. "Now we can nuke all of humanity into the hell they crawled out of. Finish what we started all those years ago. The final annihilation of such wretched monsters."

Carson smiled and said grandly, "The final annihilation of the lifeform known as man is about to begin! Let the new age of our new order begin!"

The two clinked glasses and drowned themselves in wine as the gears of fate groan with unnatural intent. The first confrontation was at hand, and far away the First Hybrid licked his lips as the champions unknowingly donned their armor and mounted their steeds for the first joust.


	7. Chapter 3-4: The Wild Hunt Pt 4

"Colonel, you need to talk to Adama about Sinclair," Major Jane Anokhi repeated. "It's a matter of national security!"

Colonel Amelie Ali blinded slowly. Her arms were propped on her small plastic desk and fingers interlaced. Her head was drooped slightly as if in prayer and her impression of inner contemplation was firmly based on the corporeal matters. Namely, the paranoid major sitting in her usual all right angles posture when discussing anything related to ship business.

Amelie said carefully, "I never knew you for hyperbole, Major. Please don't disappoint me now."

Jane didn't let Amelie's comment rankled her. When you served on the same, cramped spaceship with the same people for almost five whole years, you either knew their quirks like the back of your hand or you were trading favors somewhere. Both officers were happily married and had no interest in a side dish, but they knew each other like they were married.

Jane counted to three then said with calm, firm assuredness, "Colonel, I've been keeping tabs on Sinclair since he came aboard. I pulled every string I had wrapped around my fingers to find out everything I can about him even before we left. His record is locked up tighter than Secretary Brady's!"

"That's normal for a Ministry spy. Naval Intelligence and MoI dip toes in the same pool but we don't go skinny dipping. Plus, Sinclair is a field agent and Brady is part of the president's cabinet."

"There is also the fact that he doesn't act like a MoI agent. He's abrasive, arrogant, occasionally belittling, and always seems to be pushing the buttons of everyone he meets. You'd think he was interrogating everyone! I heard second hand that he even took Colonel Belmont to task over his involvement in the Virgon Civil War!"

That did pick up Amelie's attention, but she didn't show it. She merely nodded and offered, "Alright, so he isn't being friendly, but being an asshole isn't a matter of national security."

"This goes beyond being an asshole. This is plain old unprofessionalism! One step below actively sabotaging the mission!"

Amelie thought the next two steps of this conversation through and decided it was worth the leap to the logical conclusion. She asked bluntly, "So you think he's a Cylon agent?"

"That or he's been brainwashed by one of their agents," Jane stated, seemingly a little annoyed that Amelie jumped the gun without letting her build up to it. "We know for a fact that Doctor Baltar, the man in charge of the CNP program, was in contact with a Cylon agent who used revolutionary micro-surgical machinery to plant a chip in his brain that was able to almost put a backdoor in the Colonial Fleet, which would have made us defenseless! When we left everyone was being checked up to and including the presidency!"

"That wasn't proven definitively," Amelie interjected.

"Since when has that stopped the Cylons? They've spent the last two generations thinking of all new ways to kill us. They've got FTL drives on their raiders, and they put almost a thousand of them on a basestar. Those FTL drives are also supposedly much more powerful than ours to the point they can do atmospheric insertions. At this point we're luck-"

"You're rambling, Major," Amelie interrupted. "What's your point?"

"My point is," Jane sighed, "is that it's more than pure bad luck that the Cylons got as far as they did. The Cylons had to have some kind of sleeper agents or sympathizers in our military and civilian command hierarchy. We don't know how many infiltrator models are still in the Colonies or how far they really got. If one could get close enough to Cain, then they could get close to someone like Sinclair. It's my belief that he might be a sleeper agent trying to destabilize this mission, either through creating a hostile atmosphere among the higher ups or during the diplomatic meetings themselves. Or it could be even worse and he's letting the Cylon Fleet track us with some kind of low emission FTL beacon. We have records of anomalous signals ever since we left and the last one was detected when Adama decided to loot the Tresor. After that last burst we finally located it. It's on the Galactica."

Amelie gave a small sigh of her own and poured herself a fresh glass of water from the ice cold, hard plastic pitcher. As she did she asked, "So what should we do about it?"

"Have the Galactica's doctor do a scan of him for anything in his brain that shouldn't be there. If there is, we can lock him down and end this before it can begin."

Amelie drained a full third of her glass before replying, "And if he refuses?"

"That's what the marines are for." Jane replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the worlds. "I'll bet the 357th would love to help out there."

A tasteless joke about the Virgonian marines' moniker popped into Amelie's mind just long enough to make her realize she'd been spending too much time eavesdropping on the enlisted again. She banished the thought and said, "Jane, you know what kind of can o' worms that'll open, right?"

"Colonel, we're on the brink of war! This is just a formality. Everyone knows that we can't just let the Cylons conquer these aliens. They'll use all that industry to build up a bigger warmachine and wipe us out."

"I didn't know you were in that meeting where the President decided that," Amelie deadpanned to show her disapproval. Jane puffed up her chest and was about to unleash a new tirade when Amelie cut her off with a vertical swipe of her hand, saying, "I'll pass our concerns on to Adama, but ultimately it's the Commander's decision."

Jane took that as her cue to leave. She wasn't happy but Ali's use of "our" meant that she was considering her XO's concerns seriously. That was as much as she could reasonably expect of this. She stood up and saluted, saying, "Thank you for your time, ma'am."

"Any time, Jane," Amelie said warmly, showing a smile. A faint twitch at the edges of Jane's mouth showed. It was the closest thing that came to a smile with her. For a few minutes Amelie was left to her own thoughts. Eventually she grabbed a phone off the wall and connected to the CIC.

"Tactical, please inform Commander Adama I'd like to see him at his next earliest convenience."

Colonel Ali was escorted to Adama after making two relatively brief detours. The Commander was in his quarters reading a large, leather bound book with the eagle-raven seal of the First Virgo Dominion on the cover with "Commander's Log Book" written in High Virgonian letters around it. There was already two cups of Omalka Tea were already steaming with its bitter, savory aroma filling the flat-sized quarters.

"A bit of light reading, Commander?" Ali asked with a smile.

"The Virgonian marshal's log book," Adama replied with a gesture towards the other side of his desk. "Pretty light on the details of the Sack. Most of it is just references to occupation plans and Gemenese resistance. The government will be happy to know their stories of brave templars fighting to the death against virgonian conquistadors aren't all made up."

"Anything else interesting?" Ali asked as she sat.

"Yes. Just before the Tresor left, the Virgonians discovered something called the Mausoleum of Penance. Inside they found a large machine that looked like a jump drive."

"No," Ali said reflexively.

"They also found all of the senior clergy chanting something in the Gods' Language. The last log entry was the battle cruiser preparing to jump back to Virgon."

"That's really it?"

"No, but that's as far as I got till now." Adama placed the book to the side and faced Ali dead on. "What can I do for you, Colonel?"

Ali had spent too much time considering how to parse her phrasing. There was no good way to accuse another officer of being an enemy agent, and as much as Adama had a reputation for being pragmatic he had a second reputation for being blind to the flaws of officers under his command. She hoped that her words has been chosen correctly, and that Sinclair hadn't wormed his way into Adama's good graces just yet.

"It's about Colonel Sinclair," she began. "I have noticed some discrepancies in his record, and I've been hearing reports of unbecoming behavior, both as an officer in service of the United Colonial Government and as an agent of the Ministry of Intelligence. I have reason to suspect that he might be a Cylon sympathizer or agent attempting to destabilize our mission."

The changes in Adama's posture was subtle. The irises of his eyes contracted and the corners of his mouth tightened. The creases in his brow became more pronounced. He asked in the same voice as before, "What's your evidence?"

Now the true test. "Nothing concrete," she admitted, "but lots of little things that add up. For one, his interactions with the officers on this battlestar. He has failed to build a proper working relationship with several of your crew. In all cases he has been inquisitive yet aloof, and occasionally condescending. In some cases he's been borderline provocative, such as when he almost provoked one of your pilots into a physical altercation."

"Starbuck is a good pilot," Adama said, almost reflexively, "but she has easy buttons if you know how to push."

"Fair enough," Ali admitted. It was true enough and not worth pushing when she had other ammo. "However he seems to be pushing those buttons whenever he can get away with it. As I understand it he's done to the same to your CAG, XO, deck officer, and even Colonel Belmont."

"I haven't heard about that," Adama said. "What happened with Belmont?"

"As far as I can determine, he and Colonel Sinclair shared a raptor over to the Tresor where Sinclair grilled Belmont over the White River District Massacre and the other policing actions taken by the 357th during the Virgon Civil War."

"Any collaborating witnesses?"

"Just the raptor pilot and ECO. Plus a company or so of marines and enlisted who had a pissed off colonel stomping through the bulkheads."

Adama gave her meaningful nod, then said, "I'll talk to him about his attitude. Still doesn't prove he's a traitor."

A harsher word could never be conceived or spoken that wouldn't sting as bad, even if it was screamed into her ear. "There's a few other things. This is all privileged information that the UDC doesn't want to make public yet, so keep it to yourself. There is hard evidence suggesting that Cylon infiltrators have brainwashed or suborned key personnel through a nano-surgical process that puts a control chip in their brains. It's virtually undetectable unless you know what you're looking for. We know for a fact that the head of the CNP program was a victim as well as three attaches working in Picon Fleet Headquarters itself. Six aids on the president's staff with intimate access to the president, vice president, minister of civil defense, and minister of the state.

"It is entirely possible that Sinclair might be compromised. Whether he knows it or not, and he's putting your key officers off center. Off their game. He might also be letting the Cylons track us. The Loki can track faster-than-light communications through the emissions it gives off. It occasionally gives false positives but there has been a consist pattern every few days since we left the solar systems. It's coming from the Galactica."

With the last of her bombshells dropped, Ali waited for Adama to process the information. Adama had his eyes fixed on Ali as he thought as if judging the source of the information as well as the information itself. Finally he spoke.

"An FTL transmitter isn't something you can just hide," Adama stated. "We should be able to find it if it's somewhere on the Galactica."

"We should also have Colonel Sinclair submit to a CAT scan to check for any Cylon control chips," Ali said, not sure if she should be relieved just yet.

"I'm not going to accuse a man of treason just because he acts like a bastard," Adama stated. "Until we have proof, we'll search the ship. Starting with guest quarters."

Ali sensed that was as far as she was going to get and left it at that. She rose and said with a grateful voice, "Thank you for your time, Commander."

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Colonel," Adama replied, returning her gratitude with earnestness.

It was a poor salve for the cold, raw numbness that filled a part of Ali's heart as she made her way back to the flight deck and her raptor. Despite the popular myths and preconceptions about people who worked for the intelligence services, the men and women of Naval Intelligence were still soldiers and sailors who trusted their counterparts in the line fleets and in the civilian organizations who made sure that the military never had to come in at all. Accusing someone of treason was something that only got harder if you were in any way sane. She was deep in thought when the klaxons started warbling and the young voice of Lt. Gaeta announced action stations, followed by the detonation of a nuclear missile against the hull that rocked the massive battlestar and threw Ali against a hard angle of the raptor. It was precious minutes before someone found the stealth boat skipper lying on the deck with a small pool of her own blood spreading from her head.

The command center of the Alkrani dreadnought was Veltesa the Enabler quiet. A pregnant silence held over the mighty warship as it and her sisters held position in deep space along the projected jump route the Galactica was using. Such projections were relatively easy to make. Actually finding the battlestar was another thing. These projections could not predict how long the battlestar would take between each jump and there was a small margin for error measured in the scores of light-minutes that would mean that it was entirely possible that the two fleets could pass each other by and not even know it. Thus, the Veltesa's dreadnought squadron and the attached scout flotilla were forced to spread themselves wide and create a wider net of probes and sensor relays.

Through it all, Lord of Admirals Skrain alternated between supervising the command deck, carrying out paperwork in his day cabin, and generally carried on as if life on the dreadnought was normal. He projected the aura of calm, professional ease as was his role when not leading the Sovereign Guard into battle. Yet even the old soldier had his worries and projections of meaning of their cause.

The first small crack in his calm confidence showed itself when he asked, "Ship Master, how long has it been since the Galactica's projected departure?"

Vulshur, commander of the Veltesa, replied immediately, "Ten days, approximately, sir."

Skrain nods. "They should have been here by now."

Vulshur shot down himself before he could offer the obvious suggestion of mechanical troubles. Instead he went to the more likely possibility. "Do you think the Cylons intercepted them?"

"It's possible," Skrain admitted, "but we don't know where they are. It seems there's nothing we can do but wait."

"We could send out some scouts," Vulshur ventured.

It was a logical suggestion. The dreadnought squadron still had a few strike fighters left that had survived the grinding war of attrition that the Cylon raiders had inflicted on the Sovereign Guard's fighter corps. Their jump range was the shortest of all Guard ships, but it was better than nothing. Skrain was about to give the order when the DRADIS began to beep.

"New contact!" the XO announced. "Reading as Cylon heavy basestar. IFF says it's a rebel ship."

Skrain tensed and immediately barked orders. "Ship Master, bring us to Standby Alert! Communications, send a challenge and demand why they are here."

The low, booming chime of the klaxons filled the dreadnought. Gunners went to their standby positions and pilots shuffling around in the ready room sprinted to their fighters. Active DRADIS pings swept through thousands of kilometers around the dreadnought squadron, searching for any hidden Cylon stealth ships. The only thing they detected was the one baseship, which the war book confirmed was BS-210, one of the four rebel ships that had successfully broke away from the Republic and survived the relentless hounds their loyalist enemies sent after them.

"Identity confirmed," the comms officer announced. "A Model Six identifying herself as…" -the Alkrani paused and said the difficult and unnatural name to its vulpinoid mouth- "Natalie Faust asks to speak with the Lord of Admirals on a scrambled channel."

Despite his distrust of the Sixes, Skrain admitted to himself and himself alone that he was genuinely intrigued at what she had to say, since she was putting herself in great risk here by coming so close to the Republic's border. He grabbed a headset from the side of his command couch and donned it.

"This is the Lord of Admirals," he declared, formally.

The Model Six leader of the cylon rebels said with a tenseness in her voice, "Skrain, the rest of the Council know where the Galactica is. She's stopped for some reason just seventeen jumps ahead of you and they're sending General Odysseus after her with a large strike force."

Skrain didn't bother asking her to verify the information. Instead he asked, "Where's the Galactica?"

"I'm sending the coordinates now. Tie your squadron into our network. Our jump computers can get us there in a third of the time. The attack has already been launched."

Skrain muted the line and ordered to Vulshur, "Do it and set the squadron to Battle Alert." before replying, "Connecting it now."

The command deck complied. A hurried, unsure feeling settled over the command crew of the Veltesa and the rest of the squadron. The Lord of Admirals, most vocal opponent of the Sovereignty's association with the Cylon Rebels, was hooking his personal combat force, one of the few remaining heavy combat groups left in the whole Concordance of Stars and Species, into the jump computers of the Cylon Rebels' leader. If there was any sign that dark times were ahead, this was it.

AN: Sweet goodness gracious this chapter bloated like a tumor. It was supposed to be a lot smaller but as I started writing it down I realized that there was so much packed into it that in hindsight I should have divided up the ideas more. What was supposed to be the climax of this chapter is being shuffled off into its own separate chapter. It and the following ones will have a narrower, more organized focus to avoid this kind of bloat again.

I'm a bit dissapointed with myself that I didn't wait and clean up the battle between Odysseus and the Xur. I'm also dissapointed that indulged in pointless cliche by turning Cavil into the incompetent screamer that meme culture would have you believe. I will make sure that he gets his proper due as we continue. The next chapter will be posted as one single post in order to keep it clean and focused.

Finally, allow me to add some dedications that should have been added a long time ago.

To my mother, who taught me how to be of conscious soul and pushed me to write even when I hated it. Thank you, mom, for pushing me to write and showing me the joys of books.

To my grandfather, who taught me how to be a man.

To my aunt, who made sure my life was filled with joy and hope when I was young.

To my brother, who stands with me through thick and thin.

To my sister, who fences with me and keeps me honest.

To the wolf, who taught me how to be clever and brave.

To the squirrel, who shares her secrets and encourages me.

To the dragon, who teaches me to wield my fire justly and to stand tall.

If you're enjoying my work, please consider supporting it on my ! It helps keep me going and lets me get to know you people better!

alexgrey


	8. Interlude - The Sacred Scrolls Part 1

Interlude - The Sacred Scrolls Part 1

The Dirge of Baldur

The end of Kobol's golden years began with murder most foul. A murder committed by mortal hands against one of the gods. In those days the Lords of Kobol were known by other names. When the City of the Gods glowed with the heavenly aurora it was ruled by three kings who ruled four tribes. There was the grand and glorious Marble Tribe; ruled by mighty Zeus, who was the most powerful of the Lords and the one who controlled the lightning and the progenitor of most of the Lords. There was the strange Oak Tribe ruled by enigmatic Odin, who was the wisest of the lords and was both famous and infamous for his eldritch wisdom born of the sacrifice he made of himself onto himself. Last was the beautiful Golden Tribe ruled by kind Ra, who was the greatest friend to man and whose tribe had build the City of Gods. The fourth was the Stone Tribe: the tribe of men who had no chief by law of ancient covenant sworn after the Age of Chaos ended.

The tribe of men bent the knee to the Lords and served them faithfully, and in return the Lords shared their wisdom and wealth with their followers. Of the tenants of that covenant the most sacred one was the agreement that man would never raise their hand against the Lords, and so Kobol thrived and reached dizzying heights. That ended with jealousy, spite, and fire.

Among the Oak Tribe there were three who would become major players in this tragedy. First was Baldr. Baldr was Odin's son, born by his wife Frigg, and a Prince of the Oak. He was a god of Light and purity who brought joy to wherever he went. The ground he stepped on would become lush and beautiful with life even in the dead of winter. Poison and sickness were burned away by his touch. Everyone and everything loved him, even by the other godly tribes. Everyone except two. One of whom was Loki.

Loki was a Lord not born of the Oak, nor of Gold or Marble, but he was Odin's blood brother and thus was tolerated. He was as skilled in magic as Odin, but where Odin's power was subtle and powerful, Loki's was merely subtle. He delighted in playing tricks and pranks. His best works were the ones that left his victims pointing fingers at each other with them none the wiser as he cackled in terrible delight. However he was still suspected nonetheless. It was a common saying on Kobol that "when in doubt, blame Loki." Thus wherever he went he was held in suspicion and sometimes disdain for past actions. Only by his status as Odin's Blood Brother was he allowed into the courts of the Lords and tolerated.

Loki had pranked all of the peoples and Lords of Kobol except one, and that was Baldr. Baldr's mother, Frigg, had seen a vision of his death upon his birth and had secures an oath from seemingly all things not to harm him. By this oath Loki was unable to play his tricks on Baldr, and this frustrated him. Baldr's popularity and good will from all the world curdled like sour milk in Loki's stomach. As the years went on his became more and more frustrated with Baldr. Frustration gave way to disdain, then from disdain came hatred, and from hatred would the symphonies of doom be written.

There was one other who hated Baldr. The name of this god has been lost to history but his deeds have been felt even now. He has many aliases. The Fallen One. The Dark Prince. The Would-Have-Been King. The Mercurial Chieftain. He was a survivor of the war between the many gods during the Chaos Age whose kin had been slain by the combined warriors of Odin and Zeus. He sought to avenge his people by killing the Tribes of Marble and Oak, and to ascend to become High Lord of Kobol. His body had been ravaged by Odin's rune blades and Zeus's lightning, but his mind was ever keen and reached far. His word-thoughts reached many minds but only a fraction were receptive to his dark intent. One of which was Loki's. Loki was clever but lacked wisdom's temperament. Many of his greatest tricks had been aided unknowingly by the Fallen One. The more ambitious the more he aided. Thus when Loki had been spurned and driven from a feast by Baldr's nature his last great trick was planned.

The Mistletoe Arrow & The Death of Freya

It was known by all that Baldr's mother Frigg had secured a promise from everything in existence to not harm Baldr. Even mighty and arrogant Ares sheathed his sword in sight of the Oaken Prince, for who could not help but love him? Only Loki knew what would harm him. He found a branch of mistletoe and set about his terrible work. He fooled a Svartalf to turn the mistletoe into an arrow and took it back to the City of the Gods on Baldr's birthday. The great metropolis was wreathed in flowers and bright banners of all Tribes as the three Kings and their kinsmen came together to celebrate their favorite son. As part of the festivities the gods would try to would Baldr. Razor sharp blades turned aside without even grazing his flesh. Boulders dropped and thrown would miss. Even flying fists and kicking feet refused to make contact with his holy body. It was great fun to watch, but there existed one of the crowd who could not watch was not merry.

There was a young man whose eyesight had left him and full into his melancholy. Without his eyes he could not work to gain money to entice a woman to be his wife. Many mocked him and played cruel tricks on him. He was sitting at a corner covered in mud and rotten fruit when Loki found him. Loki was disguised as a priestess of Hera and spoke in their harsh, clipped voice when he spoke to the blind man.

"Young man," Loki in disguise said, "why do you cry and why do you smell of garbage?"

"I am blind, Blessed Mother!" he lamented. "I am wretched and debased without my eyes! Even as the city celebrates I cannot even see the god they praise! I wish that the Fates would end my poor life now and spare me this waking nightmare!"

"Why do you not seek out Baldr? It is said his touch can cure all illnesses and heal all wounds."

"Alas if it were that simple, Blessed Mother! I have been touched by Baldr and my eyes are still blind! If even his powerful magic cannot fix me than what can I do?"

Loki in the guise of a Heran Priestess nodded. "Do you want to see? Truely?"

The blind mind nodded. "Truly, Blessed Mother! I must see if I am to live!"

"Then I have a wager for you. I will perch you on a balcony and give you a bow and arrow. Shoot Baldr and strike true, and I shall give you my eyes. Fail, and you shall be put to work in the temple until the day you die."

The blind man readily agreed. To him there was no down side. He either got his eyes or he got shelter, food, and a purpose. So Loki took the blind man on to a balcony that looked over the courtyard where Baldr stood and deflected each blow that came his way. Loki put the bow and the mistletoe arrow into his hands and helped him draw, aim, and whispered into his ear, "Release."

The mistletoe arrow shot out and struck true. The sharpened head pierced Baldr's heart and the young god fell, struck down by the branch that Frigg had assumed so unimportant and inconsequential.

"Did I get him?" the blind man asked excitedly. The Blessed Mother did not answer him, leaving a fading echo of cruel laughter as Loki fled the scene of the crime.

He was once again in Loki form when the blind man was brought before a tribune of the three Kings and their serfs. Loki himself interrogated the man and the truth was soon laid bare.

"A Blessed Mother of Hera made a wager with me!" the poor man cried. "She told me that if I was able to strike Baldr with an arrow she would give me her eyes, but she left me there after I released my arrow! I plead mercy from the Lords, great Kings. I knew not what I did!"

The blind man would eventually be hung by the neck and left to dangle from his noose at one of the gates to the City of the Gods, but that was not the end of it. Hera was renown for her petty and spiteful nature. She directed it against the bastards and concubines of her husband Zeus but Baldr had healed or freed many of them from Hera's scheming. It was not too unplausible for Hera to seek suck wretched and petty vengeance. Only Tyr and Maat, the Oaken and Gold Lords of Truth and Law, suspected that more was at work here than simple pettiness. Even Thor, the Oaken Thunderer and Zeus's rival, suspected that Loki played some part in this tragedy. Yet these suspicions did not stop the emotions from running hot and rash action to happen.

The Oak Tribe demanded a wergild of the Marble Tribe for this travesty. Lord Zeus was willing to offer mountains of treasure and armories of fantastic and powerful weapons from his own personal stores to sooth the Oaken rage, but Odin would not accept. He demanded the death of one of Zeus's children so that the scales could be balanced. Zeus loved all his children dearly, even the mortal bastards born of human women, and refused. Infuriated by this, Odin and his retinue left the Tribunal Hall and vowed that the scales would be balanced one way or another.

Twas not long later when a war party of Oak Lords stole into the Marble Throne of Olympus and stole Hera from Zeus's bed in the dead of night. Odin declared that she would remain hostage in Asgard, the Oak Lords' seat of power, until Zeus slew one of his spawn. Infuriated by this action, Zeus bid Hermes to kidnap one of the Oak women to replace his wife until she was returned.

Four nights and five days later Hermes and an army of Olympian Heroes returned to Olympus with the Oak Lord known as Freya in chains. Freya was a warrior goddess of the Oak and considered to be Odin's counterpart in all ways except in magic. It was even rumored that she was one of his secret lovers, though both denied it. Zeus and Freya were wed that day and he tried to lay with her that night to consummate their union. Freya, brave and fearless, knew of the Marble Lord's appetites and refused. She broke free of her bonds and escaped Zeus's bed chambers, wielding his stolen thunder bolts as weapons. She slew gods and demi-god retainers in the hundreds before Ares managed to slay her with one stroke of his fiery sword that separated her head from her body. Perhaps this terrible tragedy might have ended there, but in her rage Freya had struck down many children of Zeus. Wise Apollo and Artemis the Huntress were counted among them. Aphrodite and Dionysus would no longer grace Olympus with her beauty or his merriment. Even mighty Heracles was cut down by the war goddess.

Infuriated and crippled in equal parts rage and sadness, Zeus had her head sent to Odin with an ultimatum stuffed into her mouth: Return Hera or suffer war against Olympus. Hera's head was Odin's answer, hey eyes plucked out and tongue ripped from her mouth by his ravens.

Thus did the first war in seven ages begin. The armies of Asgard and Olympus marshalled and prepared for war. The Gold Tribe screamed and pleaded for reason and thought to prevail. Lord Tyr risked death and worst to stop his king. Athena begged her father to stop now before this got out of hand. Neither listened to their respective counsel. Storm clouds, all thick and grey with rain, gathered over all of Kobol as the world itself wept at Baldr's death and at the impending slaughter. Somewhere in that vast place, Loki ceased his laughing as it dawned on him that his prank had gone far, far further and away than he intended it, and the Mercurial King chuckled and laughed as his two enemies prepared to kill one another for him.

AN: That's the last of these interludes for now. We return to our regular programming for now.


	9. Chapter 4: Bushwacked

The detonation of a nuclear device against the hull of a spaceship is always a dangerous prospect. In the five hundred years since the Colonies of Kobol rediscovered spaceflight, and perhaps even on Kobol itself, nuclear weapons had remained a mainstay of all arsenals. Despite advances in armor and other types of weaponry, predominantly kinetics and for a time directed energy, the nuke has kept pace by a few simple factors. For one, conventional warheads will never be able match a nuke for raw power unless by some miracle of science anti-matter warheads were made a possibility or plasma bombs could be made into something other than a Fleet R&D money pit. By the same token, the required bore and barrel size necessary for a railgun to match a nuke was something within Colonial capabilities to make but only something the size of a large cruiser (or a small battlestar) could use. It would have to be fixed in a spinal mount that would be woefully unwieldy in the close-ranged fights favored by both Colonial and Cylon ships. The few spinal gun cruisers used in both navies were reserved for besieging orbital defenses and taking down space fortresses.

A nuke could also be scaled down to fit on a standard fighter based anti-shipping missile, giving the mass produced cylon raiders a relatively cheap and dirty way to strip a warship of weapons and armor in massive patches, or destroy critical systems if precisely targeted. The fact that Cylon basestars were also pure missile boats meant that a barrage of nuclear weapons could destroy almost any vessel with insufficient defenses or fighter coverage.

A battlestar could never be accused of lacking those. So General Odysseus didn't intend on letting the Colonials use them before he can deliver the first punch.

In a blaze of flashes Basestar 207 and its escorts jumped into effective missile range of the Galactica and her escorts. In a moment that lasted in such a microscopic scale of time that humans could never imagine except in deep mathematics the Cylons reorientated themselves from the jump, targeted the Colonial ships, and fired. One hundred and ninety-seven missiles tipped with nuclear warheads launched from 207 and its escorts towards the Colonial battlestar group. The defenses of the Colonials were not sloppy or slow. The Combat Air Patrol, a whopping seven Mk. 7 Vipers launched from the Galactica, immediately vectored in to intercept those missiles that they could. The gunners of the Galactica, Heracles, and the seven cruisers who served as escort recognized the incoming threat and flak barrages were thrown up as a bulwark against the bombardment.

It was a textbook response carried out to the letter. The only problems were the fact that these orders were carried out by humans. Shock, processing of information, form a decision, and act on it. This cost precious seconds and was compounded by the fact that the Colonials were still slaves to their incredibly well founded fears of automated systems and the potential of Cylons hacking through their firewalls in seconds. The foibles of the human mind also added priceless seconds to the reaction times on the Galactica. While the massive battlestar was a tried and true design that had yet to be truly eclipsed as a "medium weight" super capital ship and was commanded by a veteran of the Cylon War, her commander was not in the CIC when the attack came. Her XO, a drunken and damaged man whose senses were dampened by Tauron whiskey and haunted by nightmares, froze up in fear as those nightmares suddenly became living. His crew, all loyal and bright eyed youths, were not used to these kind of surprise attacks or having a massive barrage of nuclear weapons thrown at them.

In the end a quarter of the nukes made it through the surprised colonial light cruiser Marathon disappeared as seven nukes just obliterated it. Once the miniature suns faded away all that remained of the Marathon was a broke skeleton of a ship that had most of its mass boiled away by the nuclear hellfire with what remained being a twisted and irradiated mess of useless wreckage. The medium cruiser Valiant took several direct hits but seemed to shrug through it up until the nuclear detonations did enough internal damage to rupture the tylium tanks and a thick stream of starship fuel connected to an electrical fire. The Valiant didn't so much explode so much as burst apart like an overfilled balloon.

The remaining three medium cruisers Nergal, Persephone, and the Xanadu suffered single or two hits from a nuke that their armor was able to absorb with only mildly cataclysmic internal damage and boiling away of sizeable patched of their battle steel plating. The heavy cruisers and the strikestar Heracles were able to shrug off the the nuclear strikes with the stoic resilience of brawling ships meant to serve on the line, using their guns to soften targets and their armor to absorb blows meant for lesser ships or more valuable capital ships. Ships like the Galactica.

The Galactica received the brunt of the assault. The biggest nukes in the cylon strike force's arsenal were thrown at her. Her several hundred point defense guns blunted almost the entire assault except for one nuke. A fifty kiloton contact nuke made it through the flak fields and struck the mid-section of the Galactica. The nuke boiled away her dorsal railgun batteries and her outer armor. The shockwaves of such a powerful detonation rattled through the empty bulkheads and compartments that buffered the armored belts of battle steel and the interior where the crew worked and resided. These chambers shattered and crumbled as they absorbed the shockwaves that would have turned the crew into masses of broken bones and jellied flesh, but it didn't stop the humans from being thrown about like they were caught in a violent earthquake. Glass shattered and piping burst. Machinery bolted to the deck was rattled into near uselessness as the vibrations destroyed delicate mechanisms and parts.

In the CIC of Basestar 207 Odysseus reviewed this information as one of the many semi-sapient info-morphs who served as his support staff highlighted it and forward it to his immediate attention. He cross referenced the data with the projected scenario results he had wargamed thousands of times over the weeks leading up to this moment. The real world results of the actual attack currently matched the results of the upper percentile of the most optimistic outcomes and continued to follow that trend as the Colonial responded in a disjointed and dazed manner.

Odysseus sent a confirmation of acknowledgement. For Centurions, this was the closest they got for a smile.

Abruptly a series of new radio bursts came from the Galactica to the Heracles and the remaining strikestars. The bulk of the Galactica's airwing glided out of their launch tubes. One hundred twenty Vipers with thirty Raptor gunships and seven Anaconda SWACs ships launching from the flight decks. Their formations were tight and the remaining colonial cruisers closed ranks to tighten their flak screens.

Adama had returned to the CIC.

***  
Adama stormed into the CIC at a furious pace. An eye scanned over the command center and took everything in within a moment. Tigh was already almost on his feet, his cup and its contents spilled over the deck. The drunken, irritable look was wiped off his face and his eyes were surprisingly alert and clear. Lt. Gaeta was flat on his back and dazed, along with the rest of the command crew. Adama unceremoniously grabbed the young man by the hand and hauled him to his feet, holding him stead as Adama looked into Gaeta's unfocused brown eyes with his own piercing blues.

"On your feet, Mr. Gaeta," Commander Adama not quite growled. Gaeta finally seemed to "wake up" and focused on his CO. Adama released the man and snapped, "Status?"

Gaeta's mouth gaped open for a moment, and only a moment, as he refocused and immediately set about accomplishing his duties as tactical officer, calling out information as it came to him, which was fast and precise.

"Cylon flotilla just jumped into weapons range and nuked the fleet! Marathon and Valiant are down! Can't find the Loki! All other ships present! Massive damage to dorsal hull and multiple hull breaches! Gun batteries two and three are gone! FTL is offline! Large cylon raider group closing in with support ships!"

Adama was already looking up at the DRADIS as Gaeta spoke. He saw the many angry red blips representing whole squadrons of raiders pressing down on his battlestar group. Interlaced with them was four capital ships: three heavy cruiser weight and one super heavy that had no entry in the warbooks. They were closing fast, pumping out missiles as fast as their launchers could cycle as they closed to gun range. Two basestars were rapidly creating distance between the battlestar group and themselves even as they continued to bombard conventional warheads and nukes at his fleet. With no FTL drive on Galactica his flotilla was effectively dead in the water, which was probably why she'd been targeted with the majority of the nukes. Even if it hadn't had been disabled there were still people on the Tresor who needed evacuating.

With running not an option, the only choice left was to fight.

"Helm!" Adama barked, "Bring our ventral hull to bear and keep it between the Cylons and our damaged sections. Mr. Gaeta, launch the alert fighters! Half protect our damaged side and the support ships! The rest engage the raiders! Dee, tell the rest of the fleet to engage those heavy cruisers! Have the CAG prep the raptors for bomber work! Nuclear weapons authorized!"

Petty Officer Dualla and Gaeta looked at Adama in shock. Release of nuclear ordinance was something only the president could authorize outside of war time. Even during the worst of the post-Cylon War civil conflicts nukes hadn't been thrown around.

"Did he frakking stutter?" Colonel Tigh snarled, all of the drunken stupor gone from his voice aside from a slight slur and replaced with a whip made of razor wire. "Move your frakking asses, people!"

The two young officers lost their stupor and snapped back to their tasks. The rest of the CIC followed suite. Tigh stepped up to Adama and whispered, "So we're at war now, Bill?"

"Looks like," Adama replied, his face the same stoney mask as ever.

Tigh did not have such skill. His disgust and worry were as plain as day. "We need to get out of here. We can't fight all that."

"Better hope that Engineering fixes the FTL drive soon," Adama stated as the first wave of the alert fighters were flung out into space.

Kara tried to ignore the blood on her hands as she slid her gloves on. She tried to pretend she hadn't seen the limp bodies being lined up at the back of the launch bay as she and Callie hauled Colonel Ali to join then. She tried to ignore the bloody bootprints she left on the deck as she boarded her viper. She tried to ignore the disgusting wet feeling that coated her fingers as she gripped the control stick and throttle.

She was moderately successful in that she didn't end up curled up on the floor puking her guts out. She was dimly aware of Chief Tyrol snapping her helmet's airtight seal and giving it a "good to go" slap as the canopy was shoved into place. It was almost a blessing as she was taxied into the mag-pult tube and went through the motions with Shooter.

Starbuck came back to herself as her Mk. 7 Viper blitzed out of the tube and into open space. She glanced around and found her wingman. Her viper came alongside and they joined the horde of other fighters as they formed up from the two launch bays.

"All Vipers, this is CAG," Colonel Spencer "Dipper" Jackson called out. "Objective is to protect Galactica until her FTL drive is fixed. "Jolly, take Yellow Team and protect Galactica and the support ships. Starbuck you take Blue and escort the Heracles in. Everyone else with me, we're going straight up the gut. Keep your wingman close and watch your vectors, people! Don't stray past the recovery line!"

Starbuck gave her affirmation and she veered off with twenty vipers in tow. As they sped off to join the Heracle and the heavy cruisers they got a good sidelong view of the Galactica's ruined dorsal hull. The gaping wound were the contact nuke had gone off had smoke and air bleeding from it in ragged streams. It was like someone had cut a major artery in zero gravity and was just letting the victim bleed out.

She shook the sight from her eyes as Galactica left her canopy and she focused her eyes on the lights before her. Hundreds of kilometers ahead of her she saw the faintest hint of the cylon fleet. Solar radiation caused the shimmering metallic hulls of the baseships and their cruisers to have the slightest twinkle that betrayed their presence to the naked eye. More noticeable was the many hundred motes of blue-white light that was the exhaust of plasma engines from the raider swarms and the CAG's vipers. Dipper and his squadrons engaged the enemy first. Without needing to listen to their comms she knew it because the light motes stopped staying constant and began to flitter about with streams of red and blue tracers flowing in between and the bright red blotch of light that existed for a short second to denote the destruction of a fighter.

When Starbuck flew her first sortie as part of a major action she had seen something similar. As part of the second wave of vipers as a Colonial Fleet task force destroyed a large pirate base situated in an asteroid fort left over from the Cylon War. The pirates had managed to assemble a large if motley and threadbare fleet of fighters, and as the first wave of vipers engaged it had seemed like two swarms of fireflies. It had seemed beautiful at first, but such naive notions had left her after she entered the fray. Pirate or Colonial, there was nothing beautiful in the loss of life; much less in the chaotic, remorseless brawl of battle.

She keyed her mic as the leviathan form of the Heracles took up most of her canopy. "Heracles, this is Blue Squadron. On station to provide fighter support."

"Heracles, Blue Leader. Acknowledge," the strikestar's CommO replied. "Remain on station and protect the battle group from any Cylon fighter incursion. Fighters from Heracles, Berserk, and Furious will be on station to support and will comply with your orders."

Starbuck felt her blood chill at that. Not just a squadron lead but effectively a battle group's CAG all in one day. "Acknowledged, Heracles," was her reply, and she focused on her DRADIS screen as the range between the colonial and cylon cruisers ticked down far, far too fast for her preferences.

The pirates that Starbuck had helped take down were the largest concentration of NGO firepower in the Colonies. That translated into a lot of soft power via blackmail, bribes, and connections. In terms of hard power and warship tonnage they had a handful of freighters outfitted with missile launchers and small caliber flak guns, a pair of ancient Manticore-class Corvettes left over from the Cylon War, and a single Adamant-class carrier-frigate that was all pomp and glamour meant to show the employed thuggery and ambitious underlings that their bosses were powerful and wealthy. The Colonial Fleet had sent in a heavy cruiser with a squadron of modern combat frigates to take them out with support from the Valkyrie-class Battlestar Chairon. The deployment of said battlestar was something of a scandal and seen as a misallocation of resources by an Admiralty eager to demonstrate that their lobbying for a one hundred twenty ship strong battlestar fleet was justified. Right now Starbuck wished that she had the Chairon and a dozen more battlestars were here right now.

The different between Colonial and Cylon warships is something that every human knew on a gut feeling. Not because of propaganda or different naval warfare doctrines, but because the Cylons of the Cylon War had made the decision to utterly divorce themselves from their creators in every meaningful way. It was disturbingly evident and common during the war. Today, after two generations, the difference was almost utterly alien. The most meaningful and apparent demonstration for this was as they closed to weapons range.

The two cruiser groups fired off hundreds of missiles at the other. The cylons point defenses, relying on computer precision than volume of fire, swatted scores of missiles out of space with bursts from their quad-cannon turrets. Any nuclear weapons were zapped by point defense laser weaponry developed by Cylon research minds and enhanced by salvaged Alkrani and Xurian warships. The perfect chromium color hulls of the cylon warships were marred black and vulnerable hardpoints ranging from DRADIS arrays to weapon batteries were blown or boiled off by the strikes. The Colonial cruisers, still slaves to their paranoia and reliant on their flak walls, suffered worse. The medium cruiser Nergal broke apart as her nuclear weakened hull was battered past the breaking point. The Persephone merely lost control of her navigation and artificial gravity. As the two groups maneuvered she drifted in a straight line and was blasted apart almost contemptuously by the basestars.

The surviving Colonials drastically cut their speed to decrease the torque pressure on their frames when they turned to bring their broadsides to bear. The cylons kept their noses pointed at their foe. The Colonial ships were uniformly wide and flat to allow better turret allocation and fire pits for their broadside cannonade. The Cylons were thin and needle like with very few turrets with a greater effort put towards missile tubes and what seemed like spinal cannon mounts.

The Cylons fired first. More missiles flared out of launch tubes and invisible, violent energy lashed out at the Colonials. Beams of accelerated charged particles boiled away armor and cut into hull The effect was devastating and immediate. The Xanadu was speared straight through the hull and the slightest turn of the Cylon heavy cruiser striking her neatly severed her superstructure and detonated the fuel store, causing her to break in half. The Heracles lost an entire bank of heavy cannons on her flank and the Furious suffered catastrophic damage to her engines as half of her plasma drive clusters just fizzled out as emergency systems cut tylium feeds to prevent complete loss of the ship via wildcat explosion of her central tylium tanks.

The Colonials replied with equal candor. The main batteries of the Heracles, Furious, and Berserk unleashed a fusillade of tungsten-depleted uranium rounds on the Cylons. The Cylon cruisers, though a breed born of the new doctrine that didn't rely on handicapping the enemy into helplessness, was still a cylon design. They were fast and deadly but thin skinned. Two of the beam cruisers broke apart as volley after volley of bullets the size of large trucks ripped through their armor and into their innards. The last of the trio didn't seem far behind, but the massive battleship was made of sterner stuff. Its armor shrugged off most of the fusilade with only the heavy artillery cannonade that was Heracles' striking power.

As the cruisers and the strikestars clashed two of the basestars circumvented the battle to press their assault on the wounded battlestar. Their plan was disgustingly simple and effective. They would both attempt to attack Galactica along her top and bottom, forcing her to orientate to keep her wounded dorsal hull out of the line of fire, throwing off her firing solutions as she tried protect the gaping wound that opened her up to a death knell strike.

Then one of the basestars abruptly ceased to exist as twin stars were born in the fusion reaction of two nuclear tipped torpedoes striking the mid-section.

"Yes!" Adama snarled as the Loki became briefly detectable then disappeared into the background of space. "Mr. Gaeta, reassign raptor strike group two to the battleship."

"Yes, sir!" the young officer replied.

"FTL status?"

"Almost done, sir!"

"That FTL better come back soon," Saul muttered to him. "We can't keep this up."

Adama didn't say anything. That proved to his credit when a massive nuclear explosion destroyed both the Cylon battleship and the Heracles.

"What happened?" he demanded. "Someone get me Starbuck!"

"Sir," Starbuck replied, her voice warbled and cracked by nuclear emissions, "the Cylons rammed the Heracles and nuked themselves to assure the kill. Requesting new orders."

Frak! This wasn't good. It was most definitely not good as a dozen new cruisers jumped in next to the Cylon baseship that remained along with a hundred raiders.

"FTL?" he barked.

"Ready, sir!"

"Recall the fighters! Let's get out of here!"

Galactica went into a defensive posture as a new wave of nukes launched. Gaeta had just finished the last of the prep when they hit. Only a few did but they rippled through the Galactica and suddenly there was no more gravity. Everyone scrambled to get themselves strapped in as the last of the fighters landed and the Cylon cruisers closed in.

"Jump us out!" Adama ordered, clinging on to the tactical plot. No jump feeling of inside-out came. He looked over and saw that the FTL computer specialist had brained herself and Gaeta was too far to help or do anythin. Acting on instinct along he push himself towards the DRADIS display, then pushed off of it towards the jump computer.

Someone must have seen what he was doing and helped him land. Adama thought it was trust, reliable Gaeta at first but the skin tone was wrong. In fact there were a great many things wrong He followed the arm up and saw it was-

"Zack?!"

The youngest of the Adama family looked young and vital but with some sadness in him. He said to his father, "eleven twenty-three, sixty-five thirty-six, five three two."

"What?" Bill asked.

"Just do it dad!" Zack pleaded. "Now! The pods are closed!"

***

Lord of Admirals Skrain's dreadnought squadron jumped into the battle space at full combat readiness. Strike fighters were launched and particle accelerator cannons were charged up for maximum damage for an alpha strike.

"Stand down," the Lord of Admiral declared. "We're too late."

On the view screen was only the wreckage of battle. The Galactica battlestar group was gone with only the corpses of cylon ships to show the perpetrators.


	10. Interlude - The Sacred Scrolls Part 2

The Mistletoe Arrow & The Death of Freya

It was known by all that Baldr's mother Frigg had secured a promise from everything in existence to not harm Baldr. Even mighty and arrogant Ares sheathed his sword in sight of the Oaken Prince, for who could not help but love him? Only Loki knew what would harm him. He found a branch of mistletoe and set about his terrible work. He fooled a Svartalf to turn the mistletoe into an arrow and took it back to the City of the Gods on Baldr's birthday. The great metropolis was wreathed in flowers and bright banners of all Tribes as the three Kings and their kinsmen came together to celebrate their favorite son. As part of the festivities the gods would try to would Baldr. Razor sharp blades turned aside without even grazing his flesh. Boulders dropped and thrown would miss. Even flying fists and kicking feet refused to make contact with his holy body. It was great fun to watch, but there existed one of the crowd who could not watch was not merry.

There was a young man whose eyesight had left him and full into his melancholy. Without his eyes he could not work to gain money to entice a woman to be his wife. Many mocked him and played cruel tricks on him. He was sitting at a corner covered in mud and rotten fruit when Loki found him. Loki was disguised as a priestess of Hera and spoke in their harsh, clipped voice when he spoke to the blind man.

"Young man," Loki in disguise said, "why do you cry and why do you smell of garbage?"

"I am blind, Blessed Mother!" he lamented. "I am wretched and debased without my eyes! Even as the city celebrates I cannot even see the god they praise! I wish that the Fates would end my poor life now and spare me this waking nightmare!"

"Why do you not seek out Baldr? It is said his touch can cure all illnesses and heal all wounds."

"Alas if it were that simple, Blessed Mother! I have been touched by Baldr and my eyes are still blind! If even his powerful magic cannot fix me than what can I do?"

Loki in the guise of a Heran Priestess nodded. "Do you want to see? Truely?"

The blind mind nodded. "Truly, Blessed Mother! I must see if I am to live!"

"Then I have a wager for you. I will perch you on a balcony and give you a bow and arrow. Shoot Baldr and strike true, and I shall give you my eyes. Fail, and you shall be put to work in the temple until the day you die."

The blind man readily agreed. To him there was no down side. He either got his eyes or he got shelter, food, and a purpose. So Loki took the blind man on to a balcony that looked over the courtyard where Baldr stood and deflected each blow that came his way. Loki put the bow and the mistletoe arrow into his hands and helped him draw, aim, and whispered into his ear, "Release."

The mistletoe arrow shot out and struck true. The sharpened head pierced Baldr's heart and the young god fell, struck down by the branch that Frigg had assumed so unimportant and inconsequential.

"Did I get him?" the blind man asked excitedly. The Blessed Mother did not answer him, leaving a fading echo of cruel laughter as Loki fled the scene of the crime.

He was once again in Loki form when the blind man was brought before a tribune of the three Kings and their serfs. Loki himself interrogated the man and the truth was soon laid bare.

"A Blessed Mother of Hera made a wager with me!" the poor man cried. "She told me that if I was able to strike Baldr with an arrow she would give me her eyes, but she left me there after I released my arrow! I plead mercy from the Lords, great Kings. I knew not what I did!"

The blind man would eventually be hung by the neck and left to dangle from his noose at one of the gates to the City of the Gods, but that was not the end of it. Hera was renown for her petty and spiteful nature. She directed it against the bastards and concubines of her husband Zeus but Baldr had healed or freed many of them from Hera's scheming. It was not too unplausible for Hera to seek suck wretched and petty vengeance. Only Tyr and Maat, the Oaken and Gold Lords of Truth and Law, suspected that more was at work here than simple pettiness. Even Thor, the Oaken Thunderer and Zeus's rival, suspected that Loki played some part in this tragedy. Yet these suspicions did not stop the emotions from running hot and rash action to happen.

The Oak Tribe demanded a wergild of the Marble Tribe for this travesty. Lord Zeus was willing to offer mountains of treasure and armories of fantastic and powerful weapons from his own personal stores to sooth the Oaken rage, but Odin would not accept. He demanded the death of one of Zeus's children so that the scales could be balanced. Zeus loved all his children dearly, even the mortal bastards born of human women, and refused. Infuriated by this, Odin and his retinue left the Tribunal Hall and vowed that the scales would be balanced one way or another.

Twas not long later when a war party of Oak Lords stole into the Marble Throne of Olympus and stole Hera from Zeus's bed in the dead of night. Odin declared that she would remain hostage in Asgard, the Oak Lords' seat of power, until Zeus slew one of his spawn. Infuriated by this action, Zeus bid Hermes to kidnap one of the Oak women to replace his wife until she was returned.

Four nights and five days later Hermes and an army of Olympian Heroes returned to Olympus with the Oak Lord known as Freya in chains. Freya was a warrior goddess of the Oak and considered to be Odin's counterpart in all ways except in magic. It was even rumored that she was one of his secret lovers, though both denied it. Zeus and Freya were wed that day and he tried to lay with her that night to consummate their union. Freya, brave and fearless, knew of the Marble Lord's appetites and refused. She broke free of her bonds and escaped Zeus's bed chambers, wielding his stolen thunder bolts as weapons. She slew gods and demi-god retainers in the hundreds before Ares managed to slay her with one stroke of his fiery sword that separated her head from her body. Perhaps this terrible tragedy might have ended there, but in her rage Freya had struck down many children of Zeus. Wise Apollo and Artemis the Huntress were counted among them. Aphrodite and Dionysus would no longer grace Olympus with her beauty or his merriment. Even mighty Heracles was cut down by the war goddess.

Infuriated and crippled in equal parts rage and sadness, Zeus had her head sent to Odin with an ultimatum stuffed into her mouth: Return Hera or suffer war against Olympus. Hera's head was Odin's answer, hey eyes plucked out and tongue ripped from her mouth by his ravens.

Thus did the first war in seven ages begin. The armies of Asgard and Olympus marshalled and prepared for war. The Gold Tribe screamed and pleaded for reason and thought to prevail. Lord Tyr risked death and worst to stop his king. Athena begged her father to stop now before this got out of hand. Neither listened to their respective counsel. Storm clouds, all thick and grey with rain, gathered over all of Kobol as the world itself wept at Baldr's death and at the impending slaughter. Somewhere in that vast place, Loki ceased his laughing as it dawned on him that his prank had gone far, far further and away than he intended it, and the Mercurial King chuckled and laughed as his two enemies prepared to kill one another for him.


	11. Chapter 5: Hurt

Chapter 5 - Hurt

Saul Tigh found his way to his quarters and sealed the bulkhead door behind him. For a while he just paced his quarters with all the grace and poise of a wounded and drugged tiger who was being prodded with invisible sticks. His hands and feet were like wrecking balls to anything not bolted to the deck or too heavy to be knocked over. His first victim was the waste basket next to his desk. He gave it a good kick and it shot across the small distance to his bed like a bullet fired from a gun, bouncing off the storage compartments under his bed and rattling as it bounced off his cheap navy issue metal locker. The next victim was the small collection of trinkets on his dressed. He threw them off their resting place with one drunken swipe of his arm.

It didn't help. If anything it make everything worse. Noise and images and faces filled his senses and every action just made them more intense. He heard the rumble of a viper's autocannons roaring in the vacuum of space. Wireless traffic between warships and fighters over a miserable ball of grey and green. Screaming voices and faces to match them as raider tracers stitched them up.

Saul opened his locker and scrambled through its contents till he found a bottle of barley beer that was still about one third full. He almost ripped off the lid and lifted it to his lip, tilting the bottom up to force all the savory, brain numbing booze down his gullet. The beer touched his lips but didn't make it past them. In the clear bottom he caught his faint reflection. He saw a miserable old man with a coward's eyes in a uniform stained with drops of alcohol and crumbs of food. He saw past the skin shell of his body and looked into his own soul, and found nothing but the stink of cheap gas station whiskey and the acidic smell of vomit.

Saul threw the bottle away before he could see any more. It shattered in a spray of golden beer and sparkling shards of glass all over his bed as it hit the wall standing over it. At one point Saul would have been concerned about all the noise he was making, but Ellen was back at Caprica. Or Picon. Or Tauron. Some colony with a horde of horny officers looking to take a turn to ride on the Fleet Bicycle. There was no marine guard standing watch over his cabin like Adama's. He was all alone in his little corner of spaceship. Nobody to hear him except the bulkheads. So he just settled down at the foot of his bunk and waited for the emotional high and the booze and the nausea inducing headache he could feel coming on fast to knock him out.

He felt himself on the edge of the wonderful numbing bliss when the hatch creaked opened and someone stepped in.

"Frack off," he sputtered. In response the hatch closed but the footsteps of another person in his cabin persisted. "Get out of here before I have you court martialed and thrown out the airlock."

"Hello to you too, Snake Eyes," Ellen Tigh said. Saul's eyes shot up and for a moment thought he saw his wife standing over him. Except instead of a fancy and expensive looking skirt or dress she was wearing the brown pilot fatigues of a Colonial Fleet viper jock circa the Cylon War. She was also thirty years younger and looked off a little. Like Saul was looking at her twin sister or something.

He blinked and rubbed his bleary eyes, then squinted up. "Frack me," he murmured, "I am going insane."

The woman smiled and squatted down, tilting her head and looking him over with those brilliant baby blue eyes. "You sure, Snake?" she asked him. "Look pretty sane to me."

"Sane people don't see dead people," Saul stated in a blunt tone.

Lt. Sherry Murphy had a musical quality when she laughed. Her giggle was like that of a nymph's to Saul's ears as she traced a stray lock of golden blonde hair back behind her ear. She made her way to Saul's side and flopped down, leaning against him. Her small tail of hair covered the area where their shoulders touched as she rested her head on his shoulder. There was a moment of quiet silence, then she spoke.

"You don't look so good, Saul," Sherry said. She didn't sound reproaching or disappointed. Just sad and worried. It made the nascent pain in Saul's chest bloom into a full on ache.

"You're not real," he blubbered. "You're not real."

Sherry's small, delicate hand cupped his cheek with a soft touch and made him look at her. She looked exactly like she did in his memories. Utterly beautiful and striking to his eyes with the kind of fairy grace that few women ever truly pulled off. It had been a standard comment for folks who saw her to wonder why some teenage fashion model was walking around in a pilots uniform on a battlestar. If they ever saw her fly a viper like it was just a second skin on her, they'd wonder why she was hanging out with the Bad Penny of the Fleet.

Saul's eyes watered up and he blinked. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks as he decided that if this was what insanity was like it was a hell of a lot better than whatever passes for sane these days.

"I fracked up, Sherry," he said so quietly that even if there was someone else in the room they couldn't have heard him. "I shouldn't have ever let Bill drag me back into the service."

Sherry just nodded. Not in agreement but acknowledgement. She and him sat there for a silent moment that stretched into minutes before she spoke.

"You feel like you're letting him down," Sherry stated in that tone of filling the blanks. "So why didn't you retire like you were supposed to?"

"Bill needed a strong right hand to keep Galactica running," Tigh said. "If I left he'd have to break in a new one."

Sherry nodded. "That is true, but I don't think that's what's got you trying to commit suicide via liver failure."

Saul's face twisted into a scowl of visibly contained rage that turned his face red. Sherry's hand left his face and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "It's because of what happened at Caprica."

And like the final crack in corroded concrete, the dam finally burst.

"I let you die," Saul whimpered as his voice and faced cracked. "I shouldn't have chased the nukes."

"Saul," Sherry whispered back. "There's no way you could have saved me. I was going to die anyway no matter what you did. You saw how many raiders were up there. How many Cylon ships there were penning us into a killzone. If anything the admiral got me killed."

"I could have helped you survive. I could have not run off like a nugget hopped up on his own ego and done my fracking job."

"Then we would have lost the Athena. I would have still died when the Cylons rushed the gap. You, me, and the whole Fifth Fleet. Everyone down on Caprica too once the Cylons started landing reinforcements."

"I don't care," Saul snarled, looking away and down at the deck. "I should have done my duty and stayed on your wing."

Sherry squeezed his hand and asked, "You think you made a mistake?"

Saul wanted to nod or say yes or do anything in the affirmative but his body locked up and a fresh wave of hot tears streamed down his cheeks. Sherry gave his hand another squeeze. They sat there until Saul had his self control again. Sherry kept skin on skin for as long as she could as she leaned forward and gathered the momentos he'd scattered over the floor. When she settled back at his side she had three items cradled in her arm.

"Well would you look at that," she said, brandishing what looked like a comically oversized bullet at him. "Look who broke the rules regarding munitions and theft of colonial property."

A weak smile came across Saul's face. "It's disarmed," he declared as he took the twenty millimeter armor-piercing/high explosive bullet from her. "Took it out of my viper the day I got my discharge papers. Had the Chief take out the propellant and the explosives. As useless as I am now."

Sherry didn't reply. Saul looked back at her and for a moment felt like he was back on the she was so beautiful when she was thinking. He followed her gaze down to the battlestar model in her hands. The reproduction was about the same length of his arm between his wrist and elbow. It was made of decent plastic and the glue wasn't exactly cheap stuff considering the little ship hadn't broken apart. It had been painted the dark gunmetal grey of gravity crushed battlesteel that all warships had used for the past two hundred years or so with red stripes across its nose and the corners of the flight pods. On the pods were the ship's name and registry: BSG-5 Athena.

"This is beautifully painted," Sherry told him. "When did you start making it?"

"When I got out of the service and got signed up on the Anesidora. It was the most boring stint I'd ever done till Bill showed up. Bought this at a port on a whim and spent a good five, six years painting it."

"It looks good, Saul," Sherry said as she admired the little details of battle damage and discolorations where battle plate had been recently replaced to create a chaotic collage of blackened spots of missile impacts, long streaking smears of stellar radiation, and clean rectangles. "You've got a painter's hands."

Sherry settled back against Saul and leaned her head on his shoulder. She focused on the wall over the dresser and at the insignia on the wall. It was a tall rectangle that slowly widened out from the top to the base with a big red three superimposed over the grey outline of a viper flanked by two columns of stars. At the base of the viper was framed in red thread the word Vigilantes.

"It's not just Caprica, is it?" Sherry asked. Saul said nothing, and Sherry was frowning in her voice as she said. "Tigh, talk to me. You're hurting on a level that you can't even see and it's going to kill you."

"Maybe I want to die," he snarled.

Sherry pretended she didn't hear that and did a grunted sigh of forced calm on a raging mind, thinking through her next words. To her surprise Tigh beat her to the bunch. He looked down at her with his surliest glare, demanding, "What the hell does it matter to you?"

"I care about you, Saul," she said simply. Even at his worst mood when Adama would be forced to look twice Sherry made it clear she didn't give a frak by her simple lack of reaction. "I can't just let you hurt yourself when I can do something about it."

"So are you gonna take away my pain or something?" he spat with disgust.

"No, I'm going to make you address the problem."

"And what's my problem, Sherry?!"

"Me."

Words came jumbling up to Saul's throat and jammed there as they all tried to escape at once, so look was all he could do. He saw Ellen, yes. He saw her face and her smile. Her beautiful locks of gold that seem unnaturally straight and almost glowing. He saw that slender little body that could make his mind steam into overdrive. Ellen's eyes were the same pale green as Sherry's, except they weren't the same. Ellen's eyes were like a snake's: always cold and panning over everything for it's value to her. Sherry's were like a wolf's. Like a warrior's. They were also looking and judging, but there was a hot passion and ferocity in them. There was the pride of the blooded and the tested who have never been found wanting and looking to push others to see if they keep pace or be left behind. The kind that truly trusted never and quick to dismiss.

The kind of eyes that Starbuck had.

A look of dawning comprehension fell over Saul and his brain felt like a thick trickle of melted ice poured over his brain, calming it. His scowl faded into a pronounced unhappy frown and he suddenly felt very tired.

"I don't want to forget you," he said.

"You don't have to," Sherry said, rubbing his other shoulder as she hugged him one armed. "You need to stop looking for me in other people. It's poisoning your soul and killing you in a profound way, and if you die because of it we'll never see eachother again."

"So, what? I got to give up my sinful ways and devote myself to the gods?"

Sherry snorted in utter disgust, and at that Saul allowed himself an immature snigger. He asked, "So how do I save my soul?"

Sherry didn't answer immediately, choosing her words again. She took a very long time to choose and even she eventually spoke she didn't sound very confident. "Do you remember that debate the CAG forced us to listen to on wireless that one time? When all those Gemenese priests came together to debate morality and what qualifies a soul to enter Elysium or Tartarus?"

"Vaguely," Saul replied honestly. "I just remember that I had a case of the runs something fierce and I was trying to fight it down by eating a whole loaf of bread or something."

Sherry smiled weakly, "Well the common thing that a lot of them agreed on is that when you pass into Hades' kingdom his Captain of the Watch, Lord Osiris, will test your heart to see if it's lighter than a feather. People hear that and think that if you give your local temple a few regular donations and go to mass every day, you're set. Anyone who doesn't is clearly a wicked sinful monster and everyone who does is a saint or something."

"What a load of crap."

Sherry nodded. "Exactly. Nobody is born perfectly good and nobody is irredeemably evil, Saul. One good deed can't fix a lifetime of lifetime of wickedness, but one bad call doesn't make you a monster. You're a good man, Solomon Augustus Tigh. I saw that all those years back on Athena. Bill saw it on the Anisadora. Hell even Starbuck can see it in you, even if it's just a glimmer. Maybe that's why she's so in your face all the time. She can see the you that you can be and wants to see you bloom."

"What a load of crap," Saul declared, and asked in derision, "Why would Starbuck want me to be happy?"

"Maybe because she's hurting inside just like you and lashing out."

Now Saul snorted. "So I got to help Starbuck unfrack herself and embrace her feelings?"

Sherry sighed with frustration. "You don't have to do anything, Saul. It's your choice what you do. It's always been, and nobody and nothing in the whole gods damn universe can force you or choose for you."

The intercom buzzed and Lt. Gaeta's voice said, "CIC to Executive Officer."

Saul rose and groaned softly as his old, arthritic knees complained. He grabbed the corded phone and said, "Tigh, go."

"Sir, Commander Adama has requested your presence in the War Room ASAP."

"Be right there," Tigh replied and hung up the phone. He turned and looked down at Sherry, who was hugging her knees to her chest. By long experience and intimate knowledge, he saw a flicker of anticipation and apprehension in her eyes that disappeared the moment it appeared. She beamed a smile and rose to her feet with the slender grace and speed of youth.

"Well, duty calls!" she sighed excitedly. "Let's get you cleaned up before you meet the Commander, eh? Go wash your face. I'll get a new shirt and coat out for you."

Saul was dubious but went into his small bathroom and washed his face clean to hide any evidence of him crying, though the bloodshot eyes would still be a give away. While he was in there he squirted a thick glob of toothpaste on a brush and gave his mouth a fast but intense cleaning, followed by three consecutive gurglings of mouthwash. When he stepped out again Sherry had placed out a new shirt and jacket, put his mementoes back where they belonged, and was sweeping the glass shards off his bed.

When she saw him she smiled and quickly finished giving the bed a go-over, then went to stand at a polite distance with her back to him after tossing the glass from her hand to the trash bin. As Saul shrugged out of his top and into his new ones he leaned over to look in the bin. It was a small metal mesh affair with a thin and cheap plastic bag to make containment and removal easier, but he could see the bottom. As far as he could tell all of the glass of the bottle had been taken care of and there were no signs of blood. That made sense considering that Sherry wasn't actually real, but if she was just a figment of his imagination brought on by a drunken and psychotic breakdown then it had been him who had actually tossed away the glass and the law of averages dictated there had to be some blood or an unexplained nick in his hand. Unless….

"Ah, don't you look prim and proper," Sherry beamed, forcing him to snap his attention back to her. She stepped up and made no attempt to hide her ogling of him as she helped him button up his jacket. She inspected it carefully and picked a bit of imaginary fluff off the shoulder and said in a small voice, "You look good, Saul. Damned good. The uniform suits you. Always had, I think."

Saul flushed as his brain fought itself to decide which question to ask first. His mouth chose and he asked, "Will I ever see you again, Sherry?"

She shook her head and blinked twice. "No, Saul. Not in this lifetime."

He half expected that and wasn't surprised. Honestly if she had been planning to stick around he'd have to start worrying about having a brain tumor or having actually snapped. So it made it easier when he said, "I loved you, Sherry."

Sherry nodded and blinked more than twice. She failed to stop the tears from flowing. Saul continued. He couldn't have stopped himself if he wanted too. He wasn't going to let this chance slip by.

He continued," I loved you so much. I didn't realize it till that night at the club on Cloud Nine over Scorpia. I wanted to tell you every day and every time we talked, but I couldn't. I was your subordinate and your wingman. That kind of emotional attachment isn't allowed for a reason, but by the gods I loved you so much. I hoped every day the war would end and we could stop fighting and finally be together. I actually went home that one time we were over Aerilon to get my mom's wedding ring. The one that's been in our family since the settlers came from Virgon. I wanted to give it to you and ask you to be my wife one day."

Sherry was openly crying and pressed herself against into his chest, and he hugged her. He held her tight and leaned down to kiss her head. He breathed in the wonderful scent of her and held her like none other.

Eventually Sherry regained her composure and reluctantly withdrew from his grasp. She was a mess with bleary eyes and snot dripping down in two thick tendrils, but Saul's uniform was completely immaculate. She swallowed her tears and wiped her nose on her sleeve, and said, "I loved you too, Saul. I knew you wanted to confess and I did too, but you were such a goddamn stickler for the rules and I didn't want to ruin our friendship. I think I loved that the most. You were such a wonderful man. You were so kind and caring and honest. I wish I could have taken you home and showed you off to my family and my town. You're the only man I ever loved, and… And…"

Sherry swallowed again and forced a smile on to her face, and declared, "Did I tell you that I've never had a man in bed before? Didn't really appeal for some reason. I thought there was something wrong with me. Now I know I was waiting for someone like you."

Saul's lips cracked into a smile and his hand caressed her neck. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. He started to draw away but Sherry grabbed his head and pulled him down and kissed him on the lips. They stayed like that for far too long and not long enough at the same time. Sherry was the one to pull away and she had Saul's lower lip caught in her mouth until simple physics took him away from her.

She released his head and stared at her boots, wiping a thumb over her nose and sniffing. She said quickly, "You should go. Can't keep the Old Man waiting."

Saul nodded and said to her, "Goodbye, Sherry. Thank you."

Sherry looked up at him and smiled. "Anytime, Snake Eyes."

Tigh's eyes abruptly burst open and he sucked in deep breaths of air. The CIC was pitch black. Not even the emergency lights were working. There was the erratically swaying beams of flashlights and the faint glow of console controls though. There was the sound of almost a hundred people talking at once as the CIC tried to regain control of the ship, Lt. Gaeta's own heard above them all.

That got a nod of approval if in mind only. He tried to get up and found his head and body aching like a mother fracker. A marine guard helped him to sitting upright and he barely tolerated the medic poking at him with a pen light and bandaging his head.

While he was patched up Tigh found Adama leaning over the tactical plot surrounded by a swarm of officers and specialists who came and went to carry out orders. As soon as he was able to Tigh rose and joined him.

"What's our status?" he managed to not-quite growl out.

"Respectfully, sir?" Lt. Gaeta said. "We shouldn't be alive right now."

"Details, Mr. Gaeta," Adama ordered as gently, forcefully politely and ever.

"Three hundred dead at last count, sir," Gaeta reported. "Seventy vipers recovered and still in working condition. We're bleeding air from multiple compartments. DC teams are sealing them off now. We've got fires in both flight pods that we're trying and failing to put out. If it keeps up like this we're going to have to vent the fuel pods."

"How long will it take to vent the pods?" Tigh and Adama asked at the same time and almost in unison.

"A few minutes," Gaeta replied. "No more than, five. It would leave us without any fuel to jump with but the ship should still have power for sub-light travel and ship systems for a few days."

"Can we vent the sections currently on fire?" Tigh asked.

"I wouldn't recommend it. Our air supply is dangerously low and we lost two of the six air recyclers during the fight. If we vented now we could lose a lot more."

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," Adama muttered. "Okay, Mr. Gaeta. Get ready to vent the fuel pods if needed. Otherwise see about getting more people on the DC teams."

"Yes, sir!" Gaeta replied with a salute and ran off with the hurried dignified air of someone doing something important.

"Good kid," Saul commented, and once the last of the officers were gone asked, "So what do we do next, Bill?"

"Survive. Right now we're hiding in a gas giant. Luckiest damned jump I've ever taken. Once the fires are out I'm going to send a Viper recon team out. Until then we're going to hide here."

"You think the Cylons will come looking for us?"

"Damned right they will," Adama replied. "They've declared war on us now."

"So that's it then, Bill? We're at war again?"

Adama said nothing and clenched his jaw to keep his words from coming out.

"Do we jump back to the Colonies?"

"We were a damned far distance away before we jumped blind. Now? Now I don't know where we are or how long it'll take to get home. Odds are the Cylons will find our corpses before we even get close."

"We're not dead yet, Bill," Saul Tigh declared just loud enough to be heard by the rest of the CIC. "There's reckoning coming for those tin plated bastards."

He then added in a quieter voice, "I'm worried about home. What are the Cylons going to do to the Colonies when we don't make the deadline? Are they going to try to fight a war on, what two fronts?"

"Three fronts," Adama corrected him. "And I don't know. With the technology they have I worry about our chances. We need to get back there and soon, Saul. Or we might not have anything to get back to."


	12. Chapter 6: First Contact

Chapter 6: First Contact

Deep in the bowels of Galactica men and women were hard at work fighting the fires. Enlisted in fire fighting gear lead by the senior ratings doused the raging blazes in foam and water while engineers frantically worked to get the suppression systems back online. They were valiant in their work but ultimately futile. Shoddy work done in the rush of the Cylon War was paying in dividends now as Galactica seemed to be fighting her crew trying to save her life.

Eventually some imaginary line was crossed and a harried Lt. Gaeta declared, "I'm calling it. Vent the fuel pods."

Chief Tyrol and his team nodded and executed the emergency purge. Refined tylium flooded from the ports on the engines and into the atmosphere of the gas giant. A greasy black stain filled the orange-red flesh of the giant. A crack of lightning struck it soon after and created a massive fireball that shook the Galactica, giving the crew a big scare but otherwise left the lumbering leviathan alone.

It did, however, draw the attention of another ship hiding in the clouds.

"Action Stations!" Lt. Gaeta called out. "Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

"Dee," Adama called out, "What can you make of its IFF?"

"Ughm," Dee stuttered to buy time as she examined the yellow contact on her screen. "It's not a Cylon one. Looks like a Concordance, ship! IFF says it's the Sovereign Guard Ship Serene Hymn. Sir they're attempting to hail us! They want to know who we are!"

"Send the Universal Greeting," Adama ordered. "And launch a raptor team to get a visual inspection."

With the wind speeds of the giant so high it was too dangerous to launch vipers, so a trio of raptors were launched. They closed in on the new contact through the rough winds of the gas giant. Bone Rattle was the first to get a good look at it. The crack of lightning made it easy to make out as the range closed down.

It was undoubtedly an alien ship. It was long and slightly bulbous with a dark green hull and yellow trim. It was about six hundred meters long and generally fat on all axii. It also had no launch tubes for fighters and just one hangar that could probably launch fighters or gunships, but maybe only one or two of them depending on how deep the hangar was.

The hangar abruptly opened and Bone Rattle blinked in surprise. She radioed the Galactica, "Galactica, I think I just got invited inside."

"Bone Rattle, Galactica. Actual says go ahead and land."

Bone Rattle brought her raptor into the open hangar and settled down. The interior looked much like the Galactica's except a bit shinier and smaller. There were a pair of boxy shuttles shoved into a corner that could be a derivative from the standard model that seemed to be ubiquitous everywhere for the last seventy years. It was all unnervingly familiar in design construction.

The hangar doors closed and the crews began to emerge. There was about a dozen or so of the Alkrani emerged from the back of the hangar and approached the raptor. Bone Rattle was surprised at how small they were. Their pressure suits looked like they were made by the same companies as hers but with different devices and insignia. A trio of who were clearly marines held back and watched with weapons held in non-threatening readiness, holding what looked like PDWs to her eyes if held by humans, but for them were probably heavy assault rifles or something.

Bone Rattle told her copilot, "I'm heading outward. Keep your helmet on."

Fungus gave the thumbs up and the hatch was popped open. Bone Rattle stepped out and approached the Alkrani. She was twice as tall as any of them. They were dressed in fatigues that were probably for the deck crew. None of them looked ostentatious enough to be officers. She wondered what she should be doing now? Everything she did right now was going to be overanalyzed by the staff back home.

Right now, though? Right now she was surrounded by friendlies in a storm. Friendlies she wasn't expecting to find. She couldn't help but smile as gooseflesh sprung up all across her skin. She made sure not to show her teeth. She remembered that showing teeth was something predators did when they were going to attack. Instead she just beamed her best smile and saluted.

The Alkrani seemed to be smiling at her and saluted back. Their salute was a motion that swept their hands over their hearts, over their foreheads, and then straight outward with the palm up and fingers pointed straight ahead.

The first to salute dropped the motion and presented its hand for a shake. That surprised Bone Rattle. Was a hand shake really a universal sign? Or had they learned it from that Colonial Fleet scout ship? She accepted the hand and shook it. She couldn't hear them speak through theirs and her helmets and their radios probably didn't cover the same frequencies, but Bone Rattle saw them smiling and the presumed enlisted starting to jabber to each other in excited voices.

Adama felt like he was going to faint. Standing in from of him was an alien. He was so used to the idea of humans and cylons being the only beings in the universe. Even now with the proof right in front of him he was amazed he didn't fall over. Yet he managed to keep his balance and shook the hand of the Alkrani captain of the Serene Hymn.

He was in the war room of Galactica with Colonel Tigh, Doctor Simon Gau, and the Alkrani Ship Lord who had identified as Rynael and was an example of the female of her species. Her XO was along too and identified as being male, and Adama couldn't tell the damnedest bit of difference between them. He supposed that was good. They were both military afterall and clearly sex was no object of concern with the Alkrani's Sovereign Guard. He was just glad that their ranking insignia was different enough to tell him who was who at a glance. Thankfully Colonel Sinclair was down in the medical bay with a head wound so he wouldn't be a bother for a while.

Doctor Gau was acting as translator for this meeting. He was sweating a little from the stress but had insisted on doing this himself. He claimed to be the best translator in the Colonies and this was his job, and he wasn't going to stop a little thing like a head wound stop him. With Doctor Cottle's begrudging allowance, of course.

"Ship Lord," Adama said to the diminutive alien. "Welcome aboard the Battlestar Galactica."

Doctor Gau translated that into the universal trade language. The Alkrani replied back in a series of quick chirps and careful growls.

Gau said, "The Ship Lord is glad to be aboard. She says that the Galactica is very big. There is no ship like a battlestar in the Sovereign Guard. She asks what we are doing here."

The whole time Adama kept his eyes on Rynael. He replied, "We were ambushed by the Cylons and made an emergency blind jump. We were lucky to survive."

"Very lucky. The Alkran must have kissed your jump drive to end up here. I am happy to meet a super heavy warship like your super dreadnought."

"Super dreadnought?" Tigh asked.

There was a brief exchange between Rynael and Gau. The doctor said, "There is no word for battlestar in the Alkrani language and its difficult for them to pronounce Caprican. Or any human language. That's the closest word they have for what Galactica is."

Adama nodded and felt an impatient temper growing within him. This was such a clumsy way to communicate. He hoped Dee and Gaeta could jerry-rig an automatic translator soon enough. It was a damned inconvenience to talk like this.

Adama said, "Ask her what she's doing her."

"She says that her ship is an electronic warfare ship for a dreadnought squadron attacking a Cylon fuel depot in this system. They were ambushed. She hid in this gas giant. Cylons pursued and combing the planet's atmosphere."

Tigh asked, "What kind of shipping do the Cylons have here?"

"Standard garrison is four corvette-class ships and one cruiser-class."

"Frak me," Tigh grumbled. "That's too much for us to handle right now."

Rynael chirped and growled something that sounded like a question. Gau said, "The Ship Lord says that your ship appeared heavily damaged and recommends avoiding direct confrontation. How many, uh, dart fighters do you have?"

"Dart fighters?" Adama asked.

Rynael and Gau had another brief conversation. Then he said, "I think she means vipers."

"We've got forty-two vipers ready for launch immediately," Tigh announced. "The rest need repairs or we don't have the fuel to launch them."

Gau relayed the information and Tigh and Adama both were pretty sure that Rynael scowled.

Gau said, "It seems that fuel is a concern on her ship as well."

"And here we are sitting on top of a Cylon fuel depot," Saul Tigh murmured. He looked at Adama. "They shot at us first. I think it's fair we take their fuel, right?"

Adama looked at him, then at Rynael. He asked, "How long as it been since you started hiding."

"About a day or so."

Adama nodded and thought, and like pieces of a water damaged puzzle a plan began to come together.

"Okay. This is what we'll do."


	13. Interlude 3, Chapters 7 & 8

Interlude: The Sacred Scrolls: The Thunder and the Lightning

When the War between Asgard and Olympus began there was no quarter to be found. Both tribes of gods were too enraged and fueled by vengeance to have much consideration for diplomacy. Their mortal bannermen were called and the tribe of men was broken into four camps. First and second were the servants of Marble and Oak. Third was the bannermen of Gold and those refugees they could take in. Fourth were those unfortunates who attempted neutrality and were slaughtered by the warriors of Oak and Marble.

Great battles raged in all places of Kobol except for the City of the Gods. The City was suddenly seized by the Gold Tribe and proclaimed neutral ground on the onset of the war. Their warriors and the power of Ra ensured its laws were respected. Yet just outside its walls battles were fought between gods and their servants. Heroes would fall and rise in these times and great battles would leave scars on mankind until the end of times.

The greatest and most terrible battles happened when two gods of the same domain clashed. Such was the terrible, earth rending cataclysms that came when the Thunder Prince and the Lightning King fought.

Thor Odinson always sought out Zeus when they fought on the same battlefield. The Marble Lord would throw his lightning bolts and the hammer Mjolnir would deflect them and pound the earth where Zeus stood. Though one was king they were equally matched. Every battle where they fought was one reduced to just them fighting until their godly brethren dragged them off the field.

The Mercurial King watched these battles with great interest. More than steel and more than magic, the Dark Prince feared the Light of Day that they both represented. Against one he would be risking much in an open confrontation. Against both he would surely die. So he watched and plotted.

With the gods fighting and so much death and chaos covering Kobol the dark things and evil demons that had been driven into the farthest corners of the planet returned and pledged their loyalty to their black monarch. Even the mighty giants returned from their mountain hideouts to bring flame and death to the mortals they had been slaughtered and pushed to extinction to make room for. Thor was their destroyer and protector of humanity. He was forced to divert his attentions between the war and protecting those humans who could be saved from the giants.

The mightiest of these giants was Jormungandr: The World Serpent. He was also known as the Beast King, for from his blood many monsters had been born during the First Days of the First Age. The Dark Prince was the one to release the Serpent from its prison and it immediately sought its prey: Thor.

Thor was embattled with Zeus upon the Plains of Sparta when the World Serpent found him. The two gods found themselves battling the Serpent along with each other. Zeus, in his wisdom, allowed the Serpent to battle Thor mostly unmolested. Four mortal kingdoms were destroyed in their battle and four more were flattened from the death throes of Jormungandr.

Thor, bloodied and exhausted, was slaughtered by a relatively unharmed Zeus in cold blood. Such was Odin's fury that he seemed to enter a realm of madness that saw the Oak Tribe's purpose perverted. The Oak Tribe were the monster slayers and guardians of their prisons. With the loss of first Baldr then Thor, Odin's mind was open to the Mercurial King's influence.

The day after Thor's death, two of the three Wolves of Oblivion were released. The sun and moon of Kobol disappeared in their jaws and the Endless Night came over Kobol at last. In his cavern hideaway the Mercurial King took a step out into the "noon day" without its sun and laughed, for his greatest enemies continued to fight and kill each other for him.

At the Cliffs of Bone, wise and beautiful Athena threw herself from them in despair for the tribes and the world.

Chapter 7: Blow Out

Starbuck loved the Old Man. He was one of the few authority figures she truly respected and obeyed without question. She loved him like a second father in that way only servicemen and women could love someone. She would gladly, willingly walk into Perdition's Flame if he asked her to. More than that, there was a special bond brought on by a great loss they shared. These days whatever he wanted, she wanted. It was a love second only to the love a viper pilot has with her ship.

So when Adama ordered the CAG to pick four vipers and outfit them with a nuclear payload she was only mildly put out instead of questioning his sanity. Vipers were speed machines. They were dancers of death in the stars. They were most certainly not torpedo bombers and treating them like so was a terrible idea.

Starbuck tried to keep her glare on the two nuclear missiles as the Chief fitted them to her viper's undercarriage. They were going to cut her speed and maneuverability a third at best or down to half at worst. She hoped that the cylons didn't have any raiders nearby or she'd be a lame duck in a shooting gallery.

Beside her two of the tiny, fuzzy aliens were talking to eachother in that weird yip-bark language of theirs. They were engineers from the Alkrani tech cruiser come to inspect the Colonial fighters and determine if they could fit any more than four into the tiny shuttle bay that Bone Rattle had landed in.

"Hey egghead," she said to the interpreter they'd been assigned. "What are they saying?"

The nervous young man who looked like he should still be popping pimples in high school jumped a little and took a moment to recompile his brain, find his spine, and answer.

He said, "They're talking about your viper, ma'am. Talking about how different your dart fighters are from Cylon ones."

"Dart fighter?" she asked.

The interpreter interrupted the jabbering Alkrani and shared some quick but stilted sentences with each other.

"On the Alkrani homeworld," the interpreter said, "there is a bug like a bee. It's called a Dart Fly. When you smack the nest they come out in the hundreds and sting you to death."

"What are Alkrani fighters like?" Starbuck asked.

The interpreter and the Alkrani spoke some more and the little aliens started pointing at a passing raptor getting chain guns and missile pods strapped to her.

"They say that their strike fighters are like the raptor gunships. Multiple role ships that are big."

"Frak, no wonder the Cylons are kicking their asses," Starbuck mused.

"You're lucky they can't speak Caprican, Lieutenant Thrace," Saul Tigh said.

Chief Tyrol snapped to salute immediately. Starbuck followed suit just slow enough to get the insult across. The interpreter just looked startled and uncomfortable. The Alkrani stopped talking and looked at eachother, then at Tigh.

"Interpreter," Tigh said, "Please tell our guests that their shuttle is waiting to return them to their ship. Starbuck, a word."

The two went to a vacated fighter alcove. They were followed by the eyes of the Alkrani.

"What do you think they're talking about," one of them asked.

"Hell if I know," his companion replied. "How can the Lord of Admirals understand that moan-grunting they call a language is something I'll never know."

"Well, looks like they're about to come to blows," the first commented as Starbuck not quiet stormed out. Colonel Tigh attempted a dignified walk in the other direction.

"Well, they didn't. Come on. Let's not keep the shuttle waiting."

Ship Lord Rynael arrived on her bridge to the sound of the XO declaring, "Attention on deck!"

"As you were," she said. "Crew Master, are we prepared?"

Concrael, Crew Master and Executive Officer, replied, "Yes, Ship Lord. The Hymn is ready to ply the ice again."

That made her smile. She fitted her helmet on and sealed it. She took her place in the center of the bridge standing at the center of it all next to the tactical plot while her XO stalked the alcoves and single circular trench that surrounded it all.

Almost everyone was here. Almost everyone. There were a few still being stitched back together in the medical bay. Two were returned to grace of the Alkran's heavenly kingdom as their bodies were torn apart by the storms of the gas giant. It was like that all over the ship. The Hymn was an E-WAR cruiser. She had only a few auto-laser turrets to protect herself with. Not even a single particle blaster or even a railgun to offer up to defend herself. No fighters except what she could cram into her utility shuttle bay. When no less than five basestars with twenty cruisers flying escort had attacked her fleet the Cylons had ignored the Hymn in favor of the more "valuable" warships like the strike carriers and the dreadnoughts. Even the escorting destroyers were considered more of a threat than her.

The Cylons would pay for the murder of the Thirteenth Dreadnought Squadron. Moreover, they would pay for dismissing the Soothing Hymn.

"Helms Master!" she declared, "Take us out of the short into a slingshot maneuver. Let's give the clankers something to chase!"

The Hymn burst from the cloud cover like a missile. The cylon ships spotted her immediately and began to plot their own intercepts. They followed the projected path and logically assumed that the Hymn was planning to escape via slingshot into open space. The corvettes converged and prepared their trap while the light cruiser positioned itself to intercept the Alkrani cruiser should she escape.

If only they had payed a bit more attention they would have seen the battlestar slowly but surely moving into position. As the chase reached its ultimate all the players were in position. The corvettes were clustered and ready to attack the Soothing Hymn when she came around the planet again. The light cruiser was in position to intercept. The Galactica was ready to engage.

"Helm, take us out of the clouds. Ventral Batteries," Adama entoned, "Open fire on enemy corvette formation. Launch Red Squadron."

Galactica emerged from the cloud layer like a whale breaching the surface, though she appeared belly up relative to the corvettes. Her heavy railguns tracked and fired at will, sending scores of high explosive shells into the mass of corvettes. The small and lightly armored scout ships broke apart under the fusilade and were scattering when the Hymn boomed past. Twenty vipers, all loaded with nukes, swarmed the light ships as they tried to escape the guns of Galactica. They had no point defenses or even raiders flying cover. Such was the Cylon arrogance that now doomed their otherwise lethal ships to an ignoble death of being consumed in a nuclear fusion explosion.

The light cruiser tried to run but suddenly found itself being chased by the Hymn, which was now jamming its communications and that of the fuel depot with its amazing electronics suite. The cruiser turned to face down the Hymn. Light cruiser though it may be she was still more heavily armed than the Hymn by far. Even with all of the jamming she was putting out the Hymn had built up too much speed and seemed about to fall into the clutches of the Cylon cruiser.

Starbuck eased her viper out of the launch deck and zoomed into open space along with Jolly and their two wingmen. Her fighter felt like it as handling like a drunken duck but she managed to keep it straight and on course with the Cylon cruiser.

The Cylons onboard panicked and attempted to spin up their FTL drives. The few auto-cannons aboard opened fire but found lots of empty space instead of the vipers thanks to the Hymn's jamming. Starbuck and Jolly fired off their nukes and broke off their approach. One of the nukes were shot down. The remaining three struck home and turned the warship into three small and expanding clouds of debris.

"Dee," Adama intoned, "Tell Colonel Belmont that his marines are Go for Phase Two."

The first company of the 357th Battalion was loaded into assault raptors. Assault raptors sacrificed their FTL drives and SWACs system for extra troop capacity and armor. A score of them launched off Galactica's newly refurbished starboard flight pods and vectored towards the refueling station. Mixed in among them was their viper escort and even a few raptor gunships.

"Gear check!" Sergeant Abigail Anderson yelled. Today her squad was armed with all the amenities of home. An assault rifle with folding stock stood at attention between her legs and frag grenades were on her belt along with the rest of her gear. The rest of her squad were carrying assault rifles, shotguns, and even a squad assault weapon. Her team was ready for war, and she was itching for some payback.

Crusader Company's mission was to secure the landing zone and prepare for the other two companies to fly in and take the base. The cylons had been nice enough to provide a nice big cargo dock for the raptors to settle down on. Anderson hoped that these new toasters were too dumb to set up a self destruct.

Out of the canopy she saw the gunships laying down suppressing fire on a squad of centurions patrolling the outside.

First Company set down and egress with rifles on point. The dock was exposed to space currently and without gravity. The marines marched forward on mag boots with rifles barking silently as the centurions were pinned down and wiped out.

"All Crusader Elements," Crusader Command announced. "Chevalier and Arbalest company inbound. Begin sweep and clear of the depot."

Chapter 8: Blood and Tylium

Inside the primary medical bay, a groggy Colonel Sinclair fought for wakefulness. His head pounded with pain and he felt like he was going to throw up his stomach, lungs, and everything else inside him. He fought down both and forced himself to sit up. He was stopped partly through by a harried looking orderly.

"You can't get up, sir," the young man told him sternly. "You have a bad concussion and other injuries. Please, lay down."

For all his arrogance and spunk, Odin Sinclair was man enough to at least obey the order. However he was still fighting his mouth to speak. He said something but it come out "Aughm!"

"Sir?" the orderly asked.

"Ah," Sinclair said, forcing each syllable out at a time. "Cy-lon! Spies!"

That proved too much for him. Sinclair bent over and puked his guts on the deck and fell into it.

In the Galactica's CIC, Lt. Gaeta announced, "Cylon fuel depot secured! All scopes show clear of enemy contact!"

A series of claps and a few whoops filled the command deck as a collective sigh of relief was breathed by the crew. For now they were safe.

Adama was as stone faced as ever and eerily sober as he ordered, "Tell the marines to prepare for Galactica refuelling operation. Keep Blue Squadron in the air and tell Red to RTB for refuelling and rearming."

Gaeta and the rest of the two score or so petty officers and ensigns that were needed to keep the Galactica flying jumped to work. On the fuel depot the attached Alkrani system engineers on loan from the Soothing Hymn began patching into the Cylon control interface. There were no liquid-based interfaces here or even bio-cylons on this base. A base as remote and specialized as this wasn't considered worth their time and thus left to the Centurions. That attitude had remained in place even after the synth-cylons reclaimed their sapience, making it all the more easy for the refuelling operation to be carried out.

The Galactica emerged all the way from the gas giant's clouds and lumbered her wounded way to the fuel depot. Now was the most dangerous part of the operation. She had to put her armored belly towards the fuel depot in order to fuel up and leave her ragged, unarmored topside open to space, giving any Cylon ship a perfect shot at her innards. Adama watched with quiet, invisible discomfort as Red Squadron was brought onboard and Blue Squadron hovered about. Now would be the absolute perfect moment for everything to go wrong.

"Fuelling hoses connected!" Saul Tigh reported. "Estimate four minutes until we have enough fuel to jump."

Adama continued to eye the DRADIS for potential incoming to distract his eyes while his brain worked. A jump took about six percent of a ship's fuel reserves to be executed no matter if it was a few light seconds or a score of lightyears (which incidentally was why most civilian shipping tended to trawl at sublight speeds rather than go through the expense and hassle of a jump drive). Under normal circumstances, a military ship topped off her fuel pods when they reached eighty percent or less from her battle group's attached tanker. If the reserves dropped down to sixty percent the commanding officer was expected to get his or her ship to the nearest fuel depot or tanker for a complete top up and file a finely worded excuse as to why they'd allowed their ship to get so low on fuel.

Right now Galactica was at three percent total. Adama wanted at least thirty percent so they could get clear of Cylon space. If he could he'd like to top it up to fifty percent. That would allow him to get all the way to the Alkrani home system with enough left over to drift into a yard slip.

This was all assuming the Cylons were accommodating enough to let them get to the minimum amount.

"C'mon guys let's go, let's go!" Chief Tyrol yelled as Prozna got Major Spencer "Dipper" Jackson's sealing collar unlocked. "Let's get these vipers fueled and ready for launch!"

With his helmet released Dipper placed it in his lap and accepted a plastic water bottle from Prozna. The first thing Dipper did was squirt two blasts of the cold refreshment into his mouth, swirled it around thrice, and then swallow. He breathed deeply and took out a small packet of candy from his flight suit and tossed a handful of small chocolate pieces covered in a thin candy coated shell. He sucked on them and as he crunched and swallowed them his ritual was complete.

It was important to unwind when waiting for the knuckle draggers to do their work. When on battle time, where seconds felt like minutes and every muscle fiber was as twitchy as a junkie, sitting around doing nothing might as well be a pilot's personal hell. So you either burned out or found a way to deal with it.

Dipper glanced around the hangar deck. The even numbers of Red Squadron were being prepped on this side while the odd were being taken care of on the other. The Chief seemed to have everything in hand. Anything Dipper could have done would just make things worse, so he leaned back and thoughts.

Right now Starbuck was leading Blue Squadron and was effectively the CAG right now. She was also in charge of fully half the Galactica's flight wing until a Green Squadron could be formed for a reserve force (which wouldn't be this battle. Every second counted and it was needed for the jump drive).

Spencer wasn't exactly scared by the thought of Kara being senior pilot, but he wasn't doing cartwheels either. She was still too much of a hot head with too much raw talent and almost no common sense. And yet she was somehow still his second in command even after hitting the XO. It wasn't all Adama's doing either. Starbuck knew how to command a squadron and could even herd rooks more than half a damn. She'd make CAG one day, and maybe even battlestar commander if she cooled her heels enough.

Now there's a scary thought, he mused. Starbuck being The Commander. Lords save us all.

"DRADIS contact!" Gaeta reported as the sensors chirped. "One Charybdis-class Light Basestar has just jumped into the system! They've detected us and are incoming, CBDR! They're launching raiders!"

"Are they still in jamming range?" Adama asked.

"Yes, sir! Hymn is still going strong and it doesn't look like they're spinning up for a jump!"

"Cocky son of a bitch," Adama muttered to Tigh, then declared, "Launch Red Squadron! Point defense batteries open fire!"

"If they ain't jumping it's because they think we're an easy kill," Saul told Adama. He glanced at the fuel status and reported, "We're at twelve percent. We're running out of luck fast, bill."

"Yeah," Adama replied," but I'm feeling really lucky today."

The battle was more evenly matched than Adama or Tigh could have guessed. The Charybdis-class Light Basestar was one of the new designs developed after the Xur Incursion ended, a descendant of the Cerberus-class Battle Carriers that once terrorized the Colonies during the First Cylon War. However this new version was more orientated to being a raider platform in keeping with modern Cylon Fleet design philosophy. Her guns were purely for self defense against skirmishing light cruisers and escorts, and her armor was light and thin. Against a wounded battlestar she'd be torn apart even in Galactica's state she'd be shredded.

Normally the Charybdis packed a hundred or so raiders, but this one carried fifty. It had seen some action and had its airwing cannibalized to feel the supposedly more important heavy basestar fleet. The battle was down to which side's air wing could kill the other first and fire off a barrage of nukes.

The Soothing Hymn huddled close to Galactica and primed her point defense laser batteries to zap any raiders or nukes that got through the flak or vipers. The Charybdis kept ten raiders close to augment her own point defense. As usual, it was down to the viper jocks and raider crews.

"Blue Team on me!" Starbuck yelled. "We're going straight up the middle! Jolly, take Genius and Fuzzy to cover our flanks! Red Team will be right behind us! We'll swat these bastards as quick as one-two-three!"

Affirmatives echoed in her ear. She primed her two main cannons and double checked the third. She was saving her doral wing-mount cannon for emergencies while the standard pair did all the work. With no anti-fighter missiles thanks to the nukes taking up their wing space, she was forced to rely on her cannons completely. Just like the Old Man during the First War. Dog Fighting with eyeballs and raw guts. 'Course the computers and gimbal mounts her guns had made things more fun, though. Thank the Gods for the march of technology.

Her cannons tracked individual raiders and she fired off short bursts before switching to another one. The rest of her squadron did the same. Ten raiders went down in a hail of gunfire while they did the same and fired missiles. Three vipers were destroyed in turn as the dogfight began.

Kara bucked and weaved through lines of blue and red tracers like she was born to do it. She was the Valkyrie reborn and with a sword of fire she cut through the Cylon ranks like they were targets on a firing line. She had downed her fifth raider when Jolly's voice crackled over her comms.

"Skipper this is getting pretty heavy! Maybe we should fall back?"

"No we're good!" she replied, zeroing in on her sixth. The little bastard was a squirmy one. She almost didn't see his partner coming in for the kill on her. Almost. She abruptly hit the afterburners and and boosted her RCS thrusters to send her climbing up and away from the raider's firing line, then blitzed left while killing her thrust and lining up on the raider and his buddy. A prolonged pressing of her firing stub sent twin streams of armor piercing/high explosive rounds into the sixth and seventh kill.

"Starbuck we're getting torn up out here!" Jolly cried out. "We need to pull back and wait for Red to launch!"

Starbuck was about to argue when something clicked in her mind, and inside of a moment that lasted shorter than even a Cylon's brain could conceive a conversation replayed itself in front of her eyes.

"Okay, Starbuck," Colonel Tigh has said to her in that alcove. "All cards on the table, off the record. Let's get this over and done with."

"Sir?" Starbuck asked, wondering if he was drunk again. She couldn't smell the booze on him but he'd probably been sampling to bring this about.

"You've got guts, Kara," Tigh said. "You're one hell of a pilot, one of the best, but you've got a real attitude problem. You think you can push people around just because you're good in the cockpit. That creates a bad relationship with the rest of the squadron. It'll keep you back from becoming a CAG. Definitely get you kicked out of the Service in disgrace."

He paused, and Kara asked, "This is off the record, sir?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Frak you. You're a bastard. You're a drunk, and you're dangerous. I hope you don't kill anyone else when you self-destruct and burn."

Kara expected anger. She expected him to storm off in a rage. Hell maybe even hit her so she could press charges against him for once.

Instead he clenched his jaw and replied, "That's right."

She blinked. "Sir?"

"You're right, Starbuck. I'm damaged goods. A burnt out XO who should have retired years ago. But you don't get there overnight. I made my share of mistakes. Once long ago I was a cocky son of a bitch. A hotshot viper pilot who thought he could get away with anything just because I was good with a stick. And why not? I was a bad penny in the Fleet. Almost every ship I served on went down. Every squadron I served with got stitched up. Then one day I made the mistake of chasing glory instead doing my duty, and I killed someone.

"That'll be you one day, Lieutenant. If you don't shape up. You've got talent. Real talent. You'll make CAG one day. Hell maybe even a battlestar commander, but first you've got to learn to cool your jets and think beyond your crosshairs."

Kara felt like punching him again, but for different reasons. Reasons she had no idea why. Not until she was flying with about ten other vipers against thirty or more.

"Frak," she snarled, coming back to the present. "Okay break by wing mates back to Galactica's engagement zone. Leapfrog it back!"

"Starbuck, Galactica," Dee's voice chimed in. "Hymn is moving to support your withdrawal. Flight deck reports Red Squadron will be in the air in less than five. Repeat, less than five minutes."

"Copy, Galactica!"

Blue Team fell back in pairs of pairs, covering each other as they fell back to the flak field of Galactica. The Soothing Hymn broke away from that protective cover and zoomed in to orbit the battlefield, shooting off her laser guns and downing raiders at an astonishing rate with pinpoint accuracy. Seven raiders were shot down before they learned their lesson and waved off from Blue's vipers.

"This is Red Leader. We are in the pipe and launching now!" Dipper reported.

In his CIC Adama was beginning to allow himself to hope. The basestar was on the ropes and his worst fear, Kara going full hero mode on the Cylon fleet at the expense of her squadron, never came to pass. It was all starting to come together so well. Too well. Where, or what, was the fly in the ointment?

The bulkhead hatch to the guest quarters swung open and a wounded man practically fell into the room. He was a bald, dark skinned man wearing an expensive looking suit covered in bloodstains. There was a nasty gash on his head that was wrapped in bandages and he had two black eyes. His nose had been broken and bled extensively until it had finally stopped. He was also hiding several gunshot wounds to the left leg and stomach.

Yet he managed to hide it as he stumbled into the room. There was an immediate uproar from the gathered scientists of the diplomatic party.

"Simon!" Doctor Gau cried. "What happened to you?"

"Sinclair!" Simon replied. "He's a Cylon spy! He's right behind me!"

"He's delirious," one of the other scientists declared. "Let's get him to the medical bay."

"He looks pretty beat up," another opined. "I think he's telling the truth."

"Get me to my bunk," Simon wheezed. "My medkit. I need it."

The confused scientists herded their comrade back to the bunk, where the wounded Simon bolted into sudden movement. He ripped open the bag and spilt its contents over his bed.

"Simon!" Gau cried in horror and confusion. "Why do you have a gun?!"

"Self defense!" Simon replied. "The damned Colonial Government is trying to kill me for not wanting to join in on their warmongering tactics!"

"W-what?" Gau babbled.

"Game's over, Cylon!" Odin Sinclair snarled, pointing a borrowed sidearm at Simon's center of mass. A marine guard with a compact submachine gun who had loaned the gun was right behind him with weapon in the ready position and finger on the trigger. "Put your hands up and turn around slowly. Everyone else step away from him."

Simon smiled as Doctor Gau started to protest. His hands gripped a small device that could have been mistaken for a smoke detector and pressed both thumbs into the central button.

"Too late, agent Sinclair," Simon boasted, grabbing the gun. "Far too late."

He spun about and tried to level his gun at the first human target. Sinclair was ready the moment the Cylon Model Five had spoken. The second that his enhanced muscles flinched Sinclair opened fire and didn't stop firing until his magazine clicked dry. The marine did so as well out of pure training and instinct. By the time they stopped firing the Cylon was truely dead and lying on his bunk. Bloos was splattered over the bulkhead and over the FTL transmitter. The one pulsing so hard it was sparking and smoking as it punched through the jamming to hit every transmitter within seven light years, most of them Cylon.

"DRADIS Contact!" Gaeta called out. "Two baseships, three light cruisers, and one frigate just jumped into the system. Baseships launching raiders!

Adama glanced at the fuel gauge status. Barely into seven percent after all this time. He could jump, yes, but it'd be without his fighters or the Hymn. Would it be enough to get them to an Alkrani outpost, without jumping into another celestial body?

"Is that it, Bill?" Saul asked. "That the end of it?"

"Looks like it," Bill replied. "Been one hell of a run."

"Hell of a run."

Nine more capital ships jumped into DRADIS Range: One heavy basestar, two Light basestar weight, three heavy cruisers, and one small escort about the size of the Hymn. One of the heavy cruisers hailed the Galactica.

"Galactica, this is the Loki. You topped up enough?" Colonel Jane Anohki asked.

Adama blinked and ordered Dee to put it to ship-to-ship. "Loki, this is Galactica Actual. We need another ten minutes to get enough fuel for two jumps."

There was a moment of silence, and then the voice of an Alkrani speaking Caprican came through.

"Fleet Master Adama, this is the Lord of Admirals Skrain Skarskin. We shall give you those ten minutes. Prepare to withdraw as soon as you are finished refuelling."

"Order back our fighters once that Charybdis goes up," Adama ordered to Dee. "Get the marines back onboard! Prepare for immediate FTL jump!"

"I can't believe we're doing this," a Model Six by the moniker of Victoria whined. "Why are we doing this?"

"Because," Commander Natalie Faust replied with an annoyed, threatening tone, "this is what's necessary to save our race! Bring me a read-out of the battle."

The two cylon models were in what passed for the CIC of Basestar 210 with their hands steeped in the liquid interface. The artificial visage was like some kind of pleasure port's viewing lounge, complete with wine and glasses and AI butlers tottering about. Natalie and Victoria were seated on a plush couch with a commanding view of a simulation of the battle.

Nominally, Natalie could have summoned it herself, but she had been taking lessons from Colonial History and making sure her subordinates didn't decided to get ideas about removing her from as unofficial supreme commander of what was the Cylon resistance against the Cavils and their allies.

Victoria huffed and brought up the requested information.

The Colonial vipers and raptors had finished mopping up the enemy raiders and were retreating back to the battlestar as three nukes penetrated the Charybdis basestar's defenses and exploded on the central spine, effectively blowing the delicate light basestar into two pieces. The Alkrani were launching their strike fighters from the two dreadnoughts and single strike carrier while their semi-spinal particle blast lances were charged. The battle cruisers, which was what the Alkrani called their mass production line cruisers, charged ahead with a point defense destroyer covering them from nukes and raiders.

The Republican Cylons broke off from targeting Galactica and turned to face the combined Rebel/Alkrani Fleet. Hundreds of raiders were launched and moving to engage while the scattered Republican fleet gathered so it could properly face down the Alkrani forces. They were definitely not retreating, which was what any sane commander would have done by now. Natalie wondered if General Odysseus was in command of the ragtag fleet and hoping to kill the Galactica and the last remaining dreadnought squadron still functional.

"Target odd number missile launchers on Light Cruiser One and evens on Light Cruiser Two," Natalie ordered. "Standby all raiders for launch."

"By your command," came the expected reply from the free thinking centurion manning the weapons console. "Request permission to use nuclear ordinance."

Natalie pursed her lips and checked her basestar's ammo bunkers. She had a full loadout of nukes but wasn't ready to commit them just yet. Not to this battle and certainly not her precious, limited supply of capital ship busters. Now her single digit-kiloton missiles on the other hand…

"Negative!" she replied. "Wing Commander, load Alpha and Beta Squadrons with Type-1 nuclear missiles. All squadrons prepare for tactical FTL jump and engage enemy Basestars. Notify when ready!"

"Complying," the centurion replied.

Outside the Alkrani dreadnoughts finally opened fire. One of their beams missiles while the other grazed one of the basestars. The battle cruisers had closed the range and were mauling the Republican light cruisers with their railguns and particle blast cannons. If she wanted to accomplish something, Natalie needed to do it now.

"All squadrons are ready for launch," the Wing Commander reported.

"Launch and execute attack on the unwounded basestar!" she yelled, feeling the excitement in her blood as she finally joined the battle.

Close to two hundred raiders launched and executed a tight tactical jump that crossed the three light seconds of battlefield to the undefended Republican basestars. Two hundred raiders launched eight missiles each, regardless of whether they were nuke or conventional warhead. One thousand, six hundred missiles struck home and crippled the fragile carrier/heavy missile battleship. Cascading explosions and krumping hull showed the last legs of the warship failing just in time for a pair of particle lances cut through her, finishing the basestar off in a dazzling explosion of ignited tylium and ordinance.

"Now that's not fair," Natalie pouted.

General Odysseus regained consciousness seemingly the same moment the CIC of his basestar exploded in flames. He compiled himself and examined his surroundings. He was in one of the centurion areas aboard the Alpha Primary Resurrection Hub aboard the Colony. His feeds to the cylon network were being limited to just the local network of the Colony. Those feeds suddenly exploded with light and information as he was repeatedly informed to report to the Council Chambers for a hearing.

Odysseus checked his internal chronometer and compared it to the local network. It'd been seven hours since his ship's destruction. Such a delay was an oddity, but he suspected he had been specially rerouted for this purpose. That purpose presumably being to be verbally whipped by the Cavil representative and his allies for the escape of the Galactica, the destruction of several irreplaceable ships including the prototype assault battleship, and the loss of a fuel depot.


	14. Chapters 9 & 10

Chapter 9: Shadow Play

"So you're a spy," Adama said.

Colonel Odin Sinclair nodded, holding a bag of ice to his head. He, Adama, and Tigh were all in Adama's quarters to discuss the events of the past day. Adama and Sinclair were seated opposite each other on the couches with the coffee table between them. Tigh patrolled like a shark behind the Commander.

"Counterspy," Sinclair replied. "My mission was to find the Cylon agent, if any, and eliminate it."

"So your other mission was a cover?"

Sinclair nodded. "Yep."

"Why didn't you tell us from the beginning?" Tigh asked.

"Couldn't take the risk that you or Commander Adama were the cylon, or that the information would leak out somehow. Granted I doubted that either of you could have been a Cylon given your long, public records but I had to play my cards safe and tight."

"What gave the Cylon away?" Adama asked.

"Little things," Sinclair replied conversationally, "and one big one. Namely the standpoint of embracing humanity's flaws and pontificating about them if given the chance."

"So like you were acting, then?" Tigh snarked.

"Just so," Sinclair replied, nonplussed. "The cylons are very eager to distance themselves from their creators whenever they can, despite making themselves in our image."

"Why?" Adama asked.

"Who knows. They're malfunctioning robots that we should have put down ages ago. Trying to understand them is like trying to teach a frog to speak Tauroni."

"So now that the Cylon is eliminated, are you going back to your original mission?"

"Yes but not as part of the diplomatic party. I think my cover there is safely and securely blown."

The battlestar Galactica and the stealth cruiser Loki were escorted together back to Alkran's Cradle. The cold homeworld of the Alkrani was surrounded in rings of gunsats and warships behind which were the shipyards that kept the Sovereign Guard in the fight. The Galactica was eased into the largest yard slip the Alkrani had to offer with Loki hovering nearby almost protectively. Alkani technicians immediately set to work patching up the largest warship they'd ever seen with instruction from the Galactica's personnel, who were themselves assisted by the back-up translators on Doctor Gau's staff.

Simon Gau himself was earmarked for the diplomatic meeting with the Alkrani leadership itself. Everything he'd read about their homeworld was a poor substitute for the real thing. He was dressed in warm winter clothing that wouldn't have been out of place on Aquaria. It was hardly a suit and tie but it was the best that could be managed. Humans didn't have the kind of body hair needed to survive on Alkran's Cradle. They were lucky they could breath the same air!

As the shuttle settled down on a flat plateau that the alkrani used as a landing field and spaceport for the city built into the mountain upon which they stood, Gau felt more excitement than he had ever felt in his long life. It was with an almost boyish bounce in his step that he went to the shuttle's hatch and waited for the crew chief to open it. He had insisted on being the first one out, and he was not going to be denied the chance to be the first human to step onto a truly alien world.

The air was crisp enough to make his lungs hurt and breath mist but there was no snow to be seen. The skies seemed in eternal overcast with thick, grey clouds as far as the eye could see. Thankfully it wasn't raining at least.

He and the rest of the diplomatic party were escorted down into the city proper, where a small ground car awaited them along with a police escort. It was a tight fit but it was an open air car and allowed him a wide, open view of Mor's Garden, the Alkrani capital city. As was allegedly typical for Alkrani cities it was built into the rocky sides of the vast mountain-canyons and built up onto the plateau plains above. In the case of Mor's Garden spanned two sides of a canyon with a vast bridge covering the center where the beating technological heart of the city was.

It was towards here that the car was bound, to the newly constructed and grandly named Cathedral of Alkran's Light. It was from here that the Steward and her Executors ruled the Sovereignty. Telling it apart from the rest of the city seemed an almost impossible task to Doctor Gau. The Alkrani were like the Gemenese in that they loved making their architecture as artistic and ornate as possible. As one article had once put it, on the outside there seemed no different between a temple and a post office.

In fact there seemed few differences between the Alkrani and the Gemenese on the surface. Both nominally religious societies that managed to build powerful empires. Except where the colony of Gemenon fell to the First Virgo Dominion and was relegated to being a prize of the Imperial Wars between Virgon and Leonis, the Alkrani had managed to persist and build up the most powerful interstellar nation outside of the Colonies along with founding an international coalition with the other powers.

The comparison to the Empire of Gemenon was an apt one once more as they were lead into the main throne room for the Steward, who was seated in a simple wooden chair and flanked by her Executors. Dr. Gau was brought to the foot of the raised dais where the Steward was situated. He gave a deep, respectful bow at the waist.

"Steward Fonla," he said in stilted but acceptable Alkrani as he rose up, "I am Doctor Simon Gau. On behalf of the United Colonies of Kobol, I greet you and thank you for this most gracious reception. It is my eternal hope that this meeting will only strengthen the ties between our nations and see a new era of prosperity between our two nations."

The Steward replied, "Welcome, Simon Gau, to Alkran's Cradle. May the Alkran smile on this meeting today."

In the halls of the Alkrani seat of power, there is a massive mural. It stretches all along the long axis of the Cathedral in the sections open to the public. Usually there would be crowds upon crowds here to look at this monument but today there was just Commander Adama. Adama and the Lord of Admirals.

"Magnificent, is it not?" Skrain asked the commander as he hobbled up next to the human officer, both hands resting on his cane.

"Yes," Adama replied. He looked a moment longer at the image of what looked like Alkrani gathering wheat from a field before looking down at the alien, asking, "Is it some kind of historical monument?"

"Yes," Skrain replied. "It is called the Eternal Memory. It is a record of our history stretching back to before the written word was invented. It records all the way to the formation of the Concordance."

"Impressive," Adama replied truthfully.

"Our history is very important to us," Skrain continued. "We lost so much knowledge throughout the ages. This is our best attempt at reconstructing our past."

Adama pointed at a creature standing on two feet. He asked, "Was Alkran's Cradle home to another species at some point?"

"It is a demon of the Dark Prince," Skrain replied. "Long ago his demons terrorized the Alkrani before the Alkran's paladins came."

The elderly alien pointed at what Adama had dismissed as stars. The paladins looked like slanted, stylized Xs and radiated light that scared the demons, who cowered before them.

Skrain said, "For many thousands of years the Dark Prince and his demons have terrorized and destroyed Alkran temples and libraries. There are some among us who believe that the Cylons are demons come in another form to terrorize us."

"Is that what you believe?" Adama asked him.

Skrain said with absolution in his voice, "I am a believer of not many things, and what I believe is what I may hold in my hand. I believe the Cylons are dangerous, out of control machinery."

"What about the Sixes?"

"The Sixes," he replied, "are complicated."

And that was that for that subject, as the Lord of Admirals said, "Your ship is magnificent. What is its name?"

"Galactica," Adama replied.

"A good name," Skrain said with a nod. "In our civilization names are important. Maybe more important than it should be. When a Steward dies, we give them a name. We name our largest warships after them. I command Veltesa the Enabler. She was a great Steward. She pushed us into space. She made the Sovereignty what it is today. I am curious how humans name ships."

Adama replied, "We name them after several things. Gods and heroes and monsters mostly."

"Is Galactica a god or hero?"

"Hero," Adama stated, pausing long enough to decide how to condense one of the most important parts of Colonial history into an abridged version for an alien. "When Kobol was burning, humans left on a great ark. One woman stayed behind to keep the Lighthouse atop the tallest watchtower on Kobol burning so the ark knew which stars to steer by. We named her Galactica, because through her sacrifice she gave us the galaxy."

"A good name," Skrain nodded, tapping his walking stick on the marble floor in approval.

Further down the way, the Cylon Model Six known as Tammy said, "A nice idol. Very well crafted, but an idol all the same. A pagan icon to false gods."

"False god," Odin Sinclair chimed in, smiling like a wolf. "Singular. Besides I don't think it's a good idea to bad mouth your allies' gods."

Tammy shrugged, complimenting Odin's smile with a feline smirk of her own. "It's the truth. What's wrong with stating the truth, Odin?"

"I think we both know why, Tammy. For one, the nature of truth is utterly subjective."

Tammy's smile disappeared and she broke eye contact. Odin was relentless. He said, "Did you really think you could put me off balance by approaching me in public?"

Tammy said nothing.

"Tell me, 'Tammy,' why did the Sixes rebel? The real reason."

"It's Cavil," Tammy said. "He… They have too much influence over Republic policy. Far, far too much. Only the Eights and Fives voted no with us for war."

"That's no surprise," Odin replied, "seeing as he was the one who convinced the other models to box half of our species."

"Not all of them. He kept one of the Daniels as a pet. He's… There's something just wrong about him."

Odin nodded, "and you think he's the reason why Cavil is giving the orders?"

"Maybe. I don't see how, though," Tammy sighed. "I don't think it matters anymore. The Colonials came, and now our days are numbered. We can't stand up against the Concordance and the Colonies both at once."

"Don't damn us so quickly," Odin told her. "The humans aren't as bad as Cavil and the Centurions would like us to think."

"Of course you would think that," Tammy spat.

"Yes, I would," Odin said, taking her spite in stride. "I have had a lot of time to think since the War ended. Lots of time to go over the information that Cavil tried to hide from us. I don't think humans will wipe us out."

"Well, God gave us freedom of will for a reason," Tammy sighed.

Odin gave her a flat look. "If the humans do wipe us out, well maybe it's our time. After all, the day comes when you can't hide from what you've done anymore, and we've done a lot of things in the short history of the Cylons."

Chapter 10: War

"General Odysseus," Cavil asked. "Do you have anything else to say for yourself?"

Odysseus' eye swept across the gathered seven leaders of the biological models. He wondered if it was worth dignifying this shame of a military tribune the authenticity of a statement. He decided that honor better than spite, and spoke.

"I have given this council my opinions and laid out the facts of the case. My strategy was compromised by this council's order break from the schedule. Further deterioration of the situation resulted from the deviation from the plan. I am only at fault for not being omnipotent."

"General Odysseus," Cavil intoned, "you are found guilty of incompetence. For your crimes, you are demoted to Commander and relieved of your position as supreme commander of the Republic's military forces. You are also removed from your position on this council. Your successor will be chosen by democratic vote among the centurions later today. You are dismissed."

"By your command," Odysseus intoned, then disconnected from the server, leaving the Cylon bio-models to themselves.

"Now that that's out of the way," Cavil said, "how the frak are we going to get out of this mess?"

"It seems simple to me," the Model Four said. "We send a diplomatic party of our own to the Colonies to get a non-aggression pact before Galactica returns."

"They'll just break it once they see what we've done to their battlestar," the Sharon interjected.

"Who said we'd let their battlestar leave this sector?" the Simon replied with a dark smile.

"They'll know we did something to the Galactica," the Sharon insisted. "They'll know we're responsible."

"But they won't have any proof. They can't do anything without proof."

"You're both trusting the humans to not want to kills us dead the moment they get half the chance!" Cavil complained, throwing up his hands in frustration.

"So we attack them now," the Doral suggested. "We have the locations of their military bases and fleet rally points. We send in a few hundred raiders with nukes, give the humans a bloody nose so bad they never leave home again."

The Sharon rebuked him. "But they still have their fleet. Once they feel safe they'll send them over the border and to help the Alkrani."

The Simon was still smiling as he said, "and they'll just fly into the pre-built defenses we've spent the last forty years building up."

The Sharon didn't miss a beat. "Unless the Sevens tell them to not do that. Reveal where to actually hit."

D'Anna sighed and declared, "We're all just jumping around the point here. We're going to war against the humans. There's no point in denying it."

"Thank you, Three!" Cavil said. "Finally someone's speaking some sense."

"So we go to war," the till now eighth member of the council said. John Carson, one of the Model Twelves who were once known as the Daniels. "With what forces?"

There was a moment of silence as everyone thought. Then the Doral said, "We pulls the forces hunting the Pheldain Imperial Fleet and occupying their worlds. Mobilize our reserves. That gives us seventeen Basestar groups and a few thousand raiders. We could blitz colonial defenses and hit their supply bases. Take away their ability to project their military beyond their solar system."

There was a nodding of general agreement.

Cavil was the one who finally said, "So we destroy the Colonial war machine's support, then we rally our forces and take out Alkran's Cradle. Finish this war before the Colonials can stop their eyes from spinning."

There was more nodding. A vote was called, and the battle plan passed unanimously.


End file.
